Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific

Archaeological data now show that relatively intense human adaptations to coastal environments developed much earlier than once believed - more than 125,000 years ago. With our oceans and marine fisheries currently in a state of crisis, coastal archaeological sites contain a wealth of data that can shed light on the history of human exploitation of marine ecosystems. In eleven case studies from the Americas, Pacific Islands, North Sea, Caribbean, Europe, and Africa, leading researchers working in coastal areas around the world cover diverse marine ecosystems, reaching into deep history to discover how humans interacted with and impacted these aquatic environments and shedding new light on our understanding of contemporary environmental problems.

Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems: A Global Perspective

Archaeological investigations demonstrate that peoples first settled the Caribbean islands approximately 6000–7000 years ago. At least four major, and multiple minor, migrations took place over the next millennia by peoples from Mesoamerica and South America who practised various subsistence strategies and had different levels of technology. For decades, researchers have been interested in investigating how these groups adapted to and impacted insular environments through time. This paper combines archaeological, palaeoecological, historical, and modern biological data to examine the effects of humans on Caribbean island ecosystems using a historical ecology approach. By synthesising a wide range of data sources, we take a human/nature dialectical perspective to understanding how peoples adapted to and modified their environments. The data suggest that earlier foraging/fishing Archaic groups (ca. 6000–3000 BP), who used a stone tool and shell technology and transported few, if any non-indigenous plants or animals, still impacted island landscapes as evidenced by bird and sloth extinctions. As more advanced ceramic making horticulturalists entered the Antillean chain around 2500 BP, there is an observable change to island environments as a result of forest clearance, overexploitation of both terrestrial and marine resources, and growing populations. Palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental records also suggest, however, that an increased moisture regime during the late Holocene probably led to a decrease in near-shore salinity and heavier sediment and nutrient loads in rivers. These conditions would have been exacerbated by land clearance for agriculture, leading to coastline progradation, increased turbidity, and mangrove development resulting in changes to the availability of resources for humans on some islands. Although prehistoric peoples in the Caribbean were certainly impacting their environments, it was not until Europeans arrived and population centres grew that intensive and widespread degradation of island landscapes and resources occurred. Modern ecological studies, along with historical and archaeological data, indicate that hundreds of species have been driven to extinction or extirpation – many others have significantly diminished in number, especially within the last two millennia.

Human impacts and adaptations in the Caribbean Islands: an historical ecology approach

The extensive postglacial mammal losses in the West Indies provide an opportunity to evaluate extinction dynamics, but limited data have hindered our ability to test hypotheses. Here, we analyze the tempo and dynamics of extinction using a novel data set of faunal last-appearance dates and human first-appearance dates, demonstrating widespread overlap between humans and now-extinct native mammals. Humans arrived in four waves (Lithic, Archaic, Ceramic, and European), each associated with increased environmental impact. Large-bodied mammals and several bats were extinct by the Archaic, following protracted extinction dynamics perhaps reflecting habitat loss. Most small-bodied rodents and lipotyphlan insectivores survived the Ceramic, but extensive landscape transformation and the introduction of invasive mammals following European colonization caused further extinctions, leaving a threatened remnant fauna. Both large- and small-bodied nonvolant mammals disappeared, reflecting complex relationships between ...

Anthropogenic Extinction Dominates Holocene Declines of West Indian Mammals

Resumen: 
Las comunidades precolombinas del archipielago caribeno no eran insulares. La distribucion discontinua de recursos naturales, el enfoque maritimo de los amerindios caribenos junto con la complejidad de los patrones regionales de interaccion aseguraban el caracter dinamico y interconectado de las diversas comunidades insulares pre-coloniales. En este papel se exploran las conductas socio-culturales y las relaciones de intercambio entre comunidades en las Antillas Menores. Se exploran casos arqueologicos relacionados de la adquisicion e intercambio de 1) materias primas y bienes utilitarios, 2) bienes con una alta visibilidad estilistica y funcion social como indices de identidad o status y 3) bienes de prestigio. Su estudio revela el rol fundamental de las dimensiones sociales e ideologicas en la vida caribena. Los datos sugieren que las relaciones sociales se manifiestan a diferentes niveles y en ritmos distintos, a la vez que se expresan de diversas maneras durante la ocupacion amerindia de las islas en la Epoca Ceramica (400 a.C.--1492 d.C.). Si bien existe un enorme potencial en desenredar las interconexiones en las Antillas Menores precolombinas a traves del estudio de los patrones de distribucion, la incorporacion de informacion etnohistorica y etnografica resulta imperativa para dilucidar la red de relaciones sociales subyacentes a estas manifestaciones materiales.

Island rhythms: The Web of Social Relationships and Interaction Networks in the Lesser Antillean Archipelago between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1492

This article aims to correct a number of archaeological misconceptions issuing from the Taino-Carib dichotomy engrained within the discipline. We examine the evidence for Late Ceramic Age (AD 800–1500) interactions between communities of the Greater and Lesser Antilles. This article explores and nuances the alleged dichotomy between Taino and Carib societies, details a number of contact lines between them, and advances hypotheses regarding the mechanisms underlying these interactions such as incorporation, exchange, and appropriation.

Attractive Ideas, Desirable Goods: Examining the Late Ceramic Age Relationships between Greater and Lesser Antillean Societies

Pre-Colonial Caribbean communities participated in intensive interaction networks of human
mobility and exchange of goods and ideas, guided by their cosmovision, technology,
and socio-political organization. The urge to garner status, which reflected on the group and
the individual, and the desire for access to a myriad of materials and products formed important
motivations for articulating pre-Colonial interaction circuits. Through the adoption
of a multi-disciplinary perspective, this paper seeks to develop a holistic view on the operation
of interaction network(s) across a wide, socio-politically diverse region between 6000
BC and the early Colonial period. The adoption of a diachronic, macro-geographic perspective
will help evaluate the structure through time of these social networks at archipelagic
and pan-Caribbean scales.

Crossing the Caribbean Sea: Towards a holistic view of pre-Colonial mobility and exchange

On a micro-scale, there has been evidence of intensive interaction between peoples throughout the Caribbean archipelago for many years. Recently though, increasing evidence has come to light to suggest that these relationships extended over far larger areas, bridged greater distances and variably intersected one another more than had been previously anticipated. Conceiving of the wider Caribbean as a circumCaribbean region (Antilles, coastal South America, southern Caribbean islands, Isthmo-Colombian area and coastal Central America) inhabited by a multitude of preColonial Amerindian communities, is to render (at least conceptually) the region a variegated yet cohesive entity, and lend it a degree of commonality and shared identity. In so doing, actors and contact lines should be identified, any of which could represent pivotal nodes within what may amount to a pan-Caribbean network system made up of larger as well as smaller interlocked or independent interaction spheres, in which people, goods and ideas moved. Such a broad, regional take on the prehistory of the wider Caribbean should not only provide a holistic view of the patterns of material interaction in the area, but, by expanding the scale of analysis, we are opening the door to exploring hitherto un(der) considered long-distance inter-societal engagements between the inhabitants of the islands and those of the surrounding continental regions. This would in turn invite (if not demand) us to speculate on how to conceptualize the potential engagements between communities with different levels of socio-political complexity over great distances and over long periods of time. In this spirit of scalar expansion and horizongazing, an international conference session was conceived to explicitly explore the themes of mobility and exchange within the circum-Caribbean region.

Towards a pan-Caribbean perspective of pre-Colonial mobility and exchange: preface to a special volume of the Journal of Caribbean Archaeology

Overview of pottery manufacturing traditions in St Lucia, placed within the island's cultural history from pre-Columbian times up to present Afro-Caribbean folk pottery. Authors focus on manufacturing processes in different cultural traditions through history, looking at raw materials used, the shaping and finishing, decoration, and firing process. First, they sketch St Lucia's habitation history since the first Amerindian settlers in 200 AD, and evidence of pottery, which climaxed in the later Suazoid period pottery since about 1150 AD, and discuss how later European colonization and arrival of Africans contributed to the decline of Amerindian traditions, replaced by European and West African pottery traditions, although some Amerindian traditions remained. The pottery manufacturing of 3 main cultural traditions are examined, discussing differences, as well as similarities due to cultural blending: Suazoid pottery, later Amerindian Island Carib pottery, with origins in the Guianas region, related to the Kar'ina, and current St Lucian, West African-influenced, "folk pottery". Authors conclude that all 3 traditions mainly use local clay, and include hand-built and low-fired pottery. Shaping techniques include coiling, and in today's pottery also fashioning with smaller lumps. Surfaces are smooth and polished in today's pottery, but more scraped and scratched in Suazoid vessels. Further, they find that decoration is uncommon in today's pottery, while Suazoid ceramics included decorations, and that vessel shapes tend to be simple in all 3 traditions. They also find that women have been the principal potters through time, although pottery was a male activity among the Island Caribs in the mid-17th c.

/pdf/from-suazoid-to-folk-pottery-pottery-manufacturing-3kb95sktqa.pdf

From Suazoid to folk pottery: pottery manufacturing traditions in a changing social and cultural environment on St. Lucia

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