Genetic Anthropology and Archaeology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human History in the Caribbean

Archaeological perspectives have been foundational in addressing questions regarding the initial peopling of the Caribbean Basin. As highlighted by Scott Fitzpatrick’s recent review article in Paleoamerica entitled “The Pre-Columbian Caribbean: Colonization, Population Dispersal, and Island Adaptations” (Fitzpatrick 2015), archaeological work in this region of the world has gained significant momentum since the pioneering work of archeologists in the early 20th century. Fitzpatrick’s (2015) article is a thorough and balanced discussion of Caribbean geography, the various theories about initial and subsequent human dispersals into the Caribbean, and indigenous Caribbean lifeways, including intra-regional movement and exchange, and he accomplishes this primarily through a presentation of major Caribbean prehistoric archaeological sites throughout the region. However, the review provides less information about linguists’ contributions to our understanding of the initial movements of people into the Caribbean islands (Granberry and Vescelius 2004), and, most importantly, only addresses the general findings of both ancient DNA (aDNA) and modern-genetics research. Here, I attempt to rectify this by providing a brief but comprehensive update on the state of human-genomics research in the Caribbean Basin. Overall, Fitzpatrick’s (2015) discussion of the aDNA work regarding the peopling of the Caribbean is accurate in relaying that the genetic data suggest a northern South American origin for the initial dispersals into the Caribbean. Though Fitzpatrick (2015) does not discuss some of the earliest aDNA work based on remains found in Cuba and Puerto Rico (Lleonart et al. 1999; Sanchez Crespo 1999), both of these studies considered remains from the Ceramic age and thus are similar in age to the more recent aDNA studies that are mentioned in Fitzpatrick’s (2015) article. In terms of the mitochondrial haplogroups, these two early studies concur with the later aDNA Caribbean work in that both mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups A and C are present in ancient populations. However, more accurate dating of the remains and additional higher resolution analyses would be necessary to make additional inferences about the origins of and relationships between these and other ancient remains. Though aDNA would be the most direct genetic assessment of human dispersal into the Caribbean, many more studies that address how the Caribbean was inhabited have been done using modern DNA. Not completely ignoring the body of literature on modern DNA, Fitzpatrick (2015) tends to focus primarily on the aDNA work. At least 13 modern studies that consider questions regarding the peopling of the Caribbean have been published as peer-reviewed articles or theses (Abujoub 1994; Cobo et al. 2001; Diaz-Matallana 2009; Feliciano Velez 2007; Marcheco-Teruel et al. 2014; Martinez-Cruzado 2001; Martinez-Cruzado et al. 2005; Mendizabal et al. 2008; Miura et al. 1994; Moreno-Estrada et al. 2013; Toro-Labrador et al. 2003; Troche-Matos 2001; Vilar et al. 2014). Furthermore, since the publication of Fitzpatrick’s (2015) review article, one additional paper has also been published that considers indigenous populations from the Lesser Antilles (Benn Torres et al. 2015). Some of theseworks, in particular onementioned by Fitzpatrick (2015), a paper by Toro-Labrador et al. (2003), are instructive about local populations of indigenous Caribbean peoples but not necessarily about peopling of the Caribbean Basin as a whole. These studies, however, in general provide additional insights about the origins of indigenous Caribbean populations. Furthermore, as discussed below, there are important caveats to using modern DNA as a proxy for past populations; nonetheless modern DNA studies have been instructive about the peopling of the Caribbean. Correspondence to: Jada Benn Torres. Email: jada.p.benntorres.1@nd.edu