Michael P Pateman

Scientists recognize the Caribbean archipelago as a biodiversity hotspot and employ it for their research as a “natural laboratory”. Yet, they do not always appreciate that these ecosystems are in fact palimpsests shaped by multiple human cultures over millennia. Although post-European anthropogenic impacts are well documented, human influx into th...

Objectives The Bahamas is an archipelago in the western Atlantic Ocean that stretches over 1000 km, just north of Cuba and east of the Florida Peninsula. Modern DNA studies show that contemporary Bahamians are genetic descendants of European and African ancestors, unlike Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, where Indigenous descendancy is wel...

The skeletal remains of nearly 100 Indigenous Bahamians, called Lucayans, have been recovered in the Bahama archipelago (Lucayan Islands). Until now, virtually all were recovered from wet and dry caves, caverns, and blue holes most of which lacked specific evidence for mortuary practices. In the aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015, two h...

Investigations were undertaken following the discovery of two Lucayan burials in an Atlantic coast sand dune on Long Island, The Bahamas (site LN‐101), in the aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin in 2015. The dune burials were the first of their kind to be documented and systematically excavated, and they were associated with uncommon Atlantic coast Luca...

The limestone islands of the Bahamian archipelago provide a challenging environment for human settlement, one that was not taken up until after AD 700. The analysis of human skeletal remains offers new insights into how this challenge was met. A substantial program of AMS ¹⁴C dating on pre-Columbian humans (n = 66) provides a robust chronological f...

Humans settled the Caribbean about 6,000 years ago, and ceramic use and intensified agriculture mark a shift from the Archaic to the Ceramic Age at around 2,500 years ago1,2,3. Here we report genome-wide data from 174 ancient individuals from The Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (collectively, Hispaniola), Puerto Rico, Curaçao and Venezuel...

Burned and fractured corals are common in Bahamian archaeological deposits. Although corals were used as tools and ornaments, no one has addressed why they might have been burned. We consider the possibility that the indigenous Bahamians practiced “stone boiling” as a method of food preparation. In this regard, coral cobbles provide an excellent me...

A resource for teachers and students interested in the Lucayan inhabitants of the Bahamas

Humans settled the Caribbean ~6,000 years ago, with intensified agriculture and ceramic use marking a shift from the Archaic Age to the Ceramic Age ~2,500 years ago. To shed new light on the history of Caribbean people, we report genome-wide data from 184 individuals predating European contact from The Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Curaça...

The origins of the first peoples to colonize the Caribbean Islands have been the subject of intense debate for over 30 years. Competing hypotheses have identified five separate migrations from the mainland with a separate debate concerning the colonization of The Bahamas. Significant differences in the facial morphology of the pre-Columbian inhabit...

This presentation presents a brief overview of burials from throughout the Bahama Archipelago.

Recent research investigating the origins of Bahama archipelago habitation conducted archaeological surveys on the remote Bahamian Guinchos Cay and Cay Lobos. A complete lack of prehistoric evidence, however, suggests that they played no significant role in the colonisation of The Bahamas.

In March 2007, three prehistoric skeletons were excavated and analysed from Preacher's Cave on the northern aspect of the island of Eleuthera in the Bahama archipelago. The human skeletal remains represent two males and one female dating to AD 800–1300. The first is a female in the 30s with mild osteoarthritis of the joints and spine and several he...

The caves of the Bahamas represent an important part of the archipelago's archaeological record. Cultural materials associated with Bahamian caves include human remains, pictographs, petroglyphs, faunal bone, botanical remains, and a variety of cultural material. Archaeological and ethnographic evidence indicates the importance of caves in Taíno my...

We report Quaternary vertebrate and plant fossils from Sawmill Sink, a “blue hole” (a water-filled sinkhole) on Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas. The fossils are well preserved because of deposition in anoxic salt water. Vertebrate fossils from peat on the talus cone are radiocarbon-dated from ≈4,200 to 1,000 cal BP (Late Holocene). The peat produce...