Using Environmental Archaeology to Revise Caribbean Indigenous Extinction Narratives

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• Dr. J. Julián Garay-Vázquez, University of Cambridge
• Thursday 06 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
• Hybrid/McDonald Seminar Room .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact William Wright.

The Great Dying refers to the decline of Amerindian communities, an event so transformative that it has even been proposed as the start of the Anthropocene. The population decline estimates are constructed with ethnohistoric “census” data from documents written by colonists. The flaw of the estimates is that they do not consider the ethnogenesis of indigenous-descent communities in marron enclaves. Such is the case of the Greater Antillean Arawak (today known as Taino), which is assumed to become extinct by the mid-16th century. Despite the assumed extinction, numerous people claim Taino descent across the Greater Antilles, exalting their intermixed heritage as people who survived colonial violence. Novel genomic studies support claims of Taino descent by demonstrating that some contemporary population possesses Taino genetics, particularly those from Puerto Rico. However, the genomic data is too limited and does not show direct descent, with a gap highlighted between the 17th and 18th centuries. The present paper aims to address this gap using archaeobotanical evidence from the Vistas del Oceano case study in Loiza, Puerto Rico. Moreover, it demonstrates how archaeobotany, alongside radiocarbon dating, can be used to redress extinction narratives.

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This talk is part of the Department of Archaeology - Heritage Research Group series.

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• Department of Archaeology - Heritage Research Group
• Hybrid/McDonald Seminar Room

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