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

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Epilogue
The Correct Answer Requires the Right Question
(and the Technology to Back It Up)
William F. Keegan
Let me start with an anecdote. When I first started working in Caribbean archaeology
in 1978, I happened to be associated with several biologists who were studying
Queen Conch (Strombus gigas). I was in the Caicos Islands and at the time
they were still shipping millions of dried conch per year to Haiti (until the conch
population crashed a few years later). It already had been pointed out that “Indian
opened” or punched conch had a small round hole in the spire, which contrasted
markedly with the linear cut made by modern fisherman. At one of the first meetings
of Caribbean archaeologists that I attended I asked if anyone knew how the
native peoples had removed the animal from the shell using this small round hole.
There were a number of incorrect answers, but the bottom line was that no one
had really thought about it. No one asked the question.
The same attitude prevailed with regard to the production of conch tools. Only
shell artifacts with a ground work- edge were then considered tools. Thank god
for Ramón Dacal Moure (1978) and Doug Armstrong (1979) who first raised the
question of whether recurrent and unmodified shell forms were “scrap” or tools.
At the time it was assumed that the rough form of these tools could be achieved
by smashing the shell on a rock. I can assure you that this is not an easy procedure,
and that it does not yield useable tools. A few years later, at my next meeting,
I demonstrated how these expedient forms had to have been purposely manufactured
(Keegan 1981, 1984). To my chagrin, in the process of making a tool I slit my
wrist on the sharp edge of a Strombus lip, and Strombus tool replication quickly
was christened “Arawak suicide.” I still have the scar to prove it!
Preamble
There seems to be a general impression that Caribbean archaeologists have lagged
behind their colleagues in the application of methods and theories. This is espe-
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