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

Archaeological Methods, Archaeometric Techniques / 33
Clay gathering among the Wayana is combined with a hunting and fishing trip of
several days with the whole family (Duin 2000/2001:46).
Concluding Remarks
It is suggested here that the best way to determine provenance areas in the Lesser
Antillean archipelago is to determine local sherd compositions for settlements
from multiple islands and use these as a basis for comparison in combination
with clay compositions that define the total chemical variability in locally available
sources. The outcome of these analyses in combination with ethnoarchaeological
information makes one aware of the sociocultural parameters and choices
that may have been involved in the modes of procurement and selection of the
clays and temper materials by the precolonial potters. As such, on Saba, while most
of the pottery has been manufactured of local clays, there is also evidence that either
distances have been traveled to purchase the raw materials, and/ or that the exchange
of raw materials was incorporated in a network in which also other materials,
ideas, and people circulated (Hofman et al. 2007; Hoogland and Hofman in
press).
In the coming years the refinement of these methods and the intensive collection
of clays and pottery in the other islands of the archipelago should broaden
our scope tremendously on the provenance, procurement strategies, and exchange
networks of materials and goods among precolonial island communities.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge Arie Boomert, Gareth Davies, Alice Samson, and
Luc Amkreutz for their useful comments and corrections of the original English
text.
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