Constructing from the Invisible: Conceptualizing Indigenous Village Layout and Dynamics in the Circum-Caribbean

Ethnoarchaeology, vol. 13, pp. 1–32

Abstract

In recent years, thousands of posthole features have been located during open-area excavations of Indigenous archaeological sites in the Caribbean Islands. However, the reconstruction of village spatial organization and its changes over time is sometimes a challenging task, because Indigenous village occupation can span more than 500 years. This article presents archaeological data from rescue excavations at Argyle, an Indigenous village site dating to the late pre-colonial and early colonial period on Saint Vincent Island in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean Islands. The archaeological data are juxtaposed with an ethnographic reading of seventeenth-century European documentary sources of the Lesser Antilles and two ethnoarchaeological village studies conducted with Arawakan and Cariban-speaking peoples in the Tropical Lowlands of mainland South America. This study demonstrates the value of an integrated approach in understanding the Argyle site and conceptualizing the dynamics of Indigenous village settlements in the wider Circum-Caribbean area.

Authors 4

1. Corinne L. Hofman corresponding Aachen Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies

   Leiden University · Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

   Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands

2. Stéphen Rostain

   Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · Archéologie des Amériques

   Affiliation as printed

   French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Laboratory Archéologie des Amériques, Paris, France

3. Jimmy Mans Aachen Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

4. Menno L. P. Hoogland Aachen Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies

   Leiden University · Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

   Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands