Crossing the Borders: New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean

New Evidence of Two Different Migratory Waves / 213
different migrations brought the agriculturalists into the area, since the ancient
Saladoids from Puerto Rico do not substantially differentiate from the more recent
Ostionoids, Chicoids, and Troumassoids respectively from the Greater and the
Lesser Antilles.
We can only infer that the second migration likely headed to the northwest
from the southeast, while not much can be said on the first migration. Unfortunately,
the lack of archaic dental samples from Belize and the Yucatán peninsula
hampers the possibility to test the Mesoamerican hypothesis of an early migration
from this part of the continent.
Also, the dental evidence clearly reveals a difference between those groups that
Lovén (1935) labeled “Guanahatabey” and the Taíno. This is in disagreement with
the DNA evidence, which indicates no substantial difference between the Taíno
and the Ciboney ( Lalueza- Fox et al. 2003). On the contrary, the similarity between
the Guanatahabey and the pre- Taíno samples from the Dominican Republic
(Cueva Roja) is suggestive of the bond that the groups who settled the western
part of Cuba in the centuries immediately before the conquest had with the early
hunter- gatherers. Obviously, this kind of data and the fact that they are all precontact
samples does not help assess whether these Guanahatabey groups survived
until the conquest (Keegan 1992).
The samples from both Florida and Venezuela are apparently not related to the
Caribbean groups. Nonetheless, while the Floridians consist of distinctive, wellrepresented
samples from different chronological periods, those from Venezuela
are reduced in size and of little significance, which implies caution in drawing conclusions.
It is necessary to expand our anthropological knowledge on the samples
from Venezuela, as well as of the more ancient ones from Central America from
one side, and of the samples from the Lesser Antilles from the other side in order to
be able to fully understand the dynamics, directionality, and modality of the migratory
waves from the areas.
Acknowledgments
The present research has been granted by MIUR COFIN and the Italian Ministry
of External Affairs.
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