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

Epilogue / 231
derstanding of prehistoric diet. The addition of strontium isotopes to this repertoire
promises significant new insights. Mathijs Booden and colleagues have really
gotten me excited. Recently, I suggested that human burials in a site might reflect
postmortem mobility (Keegan in press). In other words, individuals were buried
in their clan cemetery even if they did not live at the site during their adult life.
Booden and his colleagues obtained strontium isotope signatures that indicate a
significant number of “nonlocal” burials at Anse à la Gourde. This method opens
an important new avenue for investigating both diet and mobility.
All of the contributors deserve credit (kudos even) for describing their methods
in sometimes excruciating detail. This level of detail hopefully will encourage and
enable others to apply these techniques. It is only through the accumulation of evidence
from throughout the islands that the important questions can be raised, and
the diversity of cultural expressions, can be addressed.
Conclusions
Caribbean archaeology has entered a new phase. When you depart from a phase
that focused on similarity, and embrace approaches that emphasize differences,
there inevitably is a period of discovery. Investigations must address which things
are similar, which are different, and what do these similarities and differences
mean. The contributors to this volume are asking the right questions. Their results
are enhancing significantly our knowledge and understanding of the pre-
European Caribbean. In the end, the diversity they are documenting will create an
entirely new vision of Caribbean archaeology.
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