Sebastiaan Knippenberg

Leiden University | LEI · Faculty of Archaeology

The precolonial communities of the Caribbean archipelago were not insular. The discontinuous natural resource distribution, the maritime orientation of the Caribbean Amerindians, and the complexities of regional social interaction ensured that the precolonial Caribbean islandscape was dynamic and highly interconnected. This report explores the soci...

Prehistoric Amerindian society in the Caribbean has appealed to us ever since Columbus set foot on the Bahamas. In this archaeological study, Sebastiaan Knippenberg touches upon a single but important aspect of this society: inter-village exchange. Contrary to the impersonal and purely economic trade relationships in our Western society, exchange r...

A detailed electron microscopy analysis of jadeitite celts from the Early Ceramic Age Golden Rock settlement on the small volcanic island of St Eustatius, Lesser Antilles, is presented in an effort to identify the source region(s) of these jadeitite axes and evaluate the extent of trade networks in the Caribbean during pre-Columbian times through w...

DOI: 10.4324/9781003181651

The site of Anse Trabaud on Martinique in the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles has yielded valuable information about human occupation from deep beneath its surface. The site is located in the southeastern part of the island, an area vulnerable to extreme wave events. The archaeological deposits are dated to 1290–780 cal BP (2σ). The earlies...

The widespread presence of raw materials suitable for the production of stone tools on the south-eastern part of La Désirade, a small island east of Guadeloupe (French West Indies), is an interesting feature as these materials cannot be obtained on most of the neighbouring limestone islands. Small amounts of lithic off-site material have been found...

Many archeological sites with jadeitite artefacts are known in the Caribbean region, but defining the source of the raw material is a major problem, because of great mineralogical heterogeneity both in potential sources and in artefacts. The archaeological settlement site of Playa Grande on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic is particular...

Many archeological sites with jadeitite artefacts are known in the Caribbean region, but defining the source of the raw material is a major problem, because of great mineralogical heterogeneity both in potential sources and in artefacts. The archaeological settlement site of Playa Grande on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic is particular...

In the summer of 2013 a large excavation campaign revealed the layout of a late Bandkeramik settlement on the Cannerberg, just south of the city of Maastricht, near the Belgium border. The geographical location of the settlements is atypical, since most of the Dutch LBK settlements are situated on the middle terraces, with the exception of several...

During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of Twello (central Netherlands) a relatively well-preserved Single Grave Culture burial was found. This offered the rare opportunity to study this monument by using modern techniques and to analyse it in its local and wider archaeological and environmental setting. At first sight, the burial...

During a recent, large-scale excavation near the village of Twello (central Netherlands) a relatively well-preserved Single Grave Culture burial was found. This offered the rare opportunity to study this monument by using modern techniques and to analyse it in its local and wider archaeological and environmental setting. At first sight, the burial...

In this paper Sebastiaan Knippenberg will discuss the use of stone materials for stone tool production by the Amerindian populations on Martinique during the Ceramic Age. Sebastiaan Knippenberg not only studied lithic material from Martinique, but also material from sites on the northern Lesser Antilles. Comparing the Martinique artefacts with the...

The pre- Columbian communities of the lesser antilles were anything but insular. The discontinuous distribution of natural resources, the maritime orientation of the amerindian settlers, and the complexities of the region- wide social interaction patterns ensured that the prehistoric antillean islandscape had a dynamic, highly interconnected charac...

One of the main topics in the present volume is the use of archaeometric techniques in determining the source of specific materials used by the Amerindian populations of the Caribbean realm. In the opening chapter of this volume' Hofman and colleagues mention that the introduction of these techniques in this area occurred relatively late as compare...

Tussen 2001 en 2004 is in het noordoosten van de Brabantse zandgronden een aantal nederzettingen onderzocht met bewoningssporen uit de vroege en volle middeleeuwen, een periode waarnaar tot dan toe nog weinig onderzoek was gedaan in dat gebied. Achtereenvolgens zijn opgravingen uitgevoerd in Herpen (2001), Uden (2002), Bakel (2003) en Nistelrode (2...

This work discusses the exchange of stone materials and artefacts among the northern Lesser Antilles during the Ceramic Age (500 BC - AD 1492). Through the systematic analysis of source materials and a comparison of these with lithic artefacts, the provenance of a significant portion of stone material found at a number of prehistoric Amerindian hab...