Seafaring Capabilities in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean

At historic contact Europeans remarked on the skill and proficiency of native Caribbean Amerindians to build and travel in dugout canoes. While archaeological examples of these have been recorded throughout the circum-Caribbean, very few exist in the Antillean chain of islands. Despite this deficiency, indirect evidence of seafaring along with archaeological data has suggested to many that the sea was an artery that linked prehistoric communities together between islands and continents through exchange networks and settlement ‘lifelines’. It is clear that frequent interaction was taking place prehistorically in the region, but examination of seafaring capabilities and the general lack of hard archaeological evidence for contacts in many places suggest this was largely restricted to interaction between the islands and with South America. The fact remains that seafaring in the Caribbean, as one of the smaller aquatic realms inhabited by humans in the past, was highly influenced and largely structured by oceanographic and anemological effects that limited the development of various watercraft designs and navigational techniques which are seen in many of the other world’s seas and oceans. In this paper I: (1) synthesize what is currently known about the antiquity and development of early seafaring in the Caribbean; (2) highlight debates about the level of technologies found in the region; (3) discuss how environmental conditions likely influenced seafaring capabilities and settlement patterns; (4) outline the possible evidence for connections between the different surrounding mainland areas; and (5) provide a comparison with seafaring technologies found in the Pacific to help contextualize the Caribbean into the broader context of global seafaring.     

Shell Middens, Ships and Seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula occupies a critical position at the intersect of several major Old World landmasses. Inland aridity and a major coastal perimeter have long made maritime activities critical to Arabia’s cultural trajectory. A wealth of recent studies, not previously synthesised, suggest not only that the peninsular littoral offered a rich resource base for thousands of years of human occupation in the region, but also that Arabia witnessed some of the world’s earliest seafaring and maritime exchange activities, and played a role in Bronze Age maritime trade that has often been underestimated. Maritime activities were closely linked to developments in agriculture, which not only fuelled trade and exchange, but were also impacted on by the dispersal of domesticates along early maritime corridors. While regional specialisation has to some degree prevented consideration of the maritime prehistory of the peninsula as a whole, it is clear that there are interesting parallels, as well as important differences, between cultural trajectories in different parts of the peninsula.     

Remembering the Sea: Personal and Communal Recollections of Maritime Life in Jizan and the Farasan Islands,Saudi Arabia

People create narratives of their maritime past through the remembering and forgetting of seafaring experiences, and through the retention and disposal of maritime artefacts that function mnemonically to evoke or suppress those experiences. The sustenance and reproduction of the resulting narratives depends further on effective media of intergenerational transmission; otherwise, they are lost. Rapid socio-economic transformation across Saudi Arabia in the age of oil has disrupted longstanding seafaring economies in the Red Sea archipelago of the Farasan Islands, and the nearby mainland port of Jizan. Vestiges of wooden boatbuilding activity are few; long-distance dhow trade with South Asia, the Arabian-Persian Gulf and East Africa has ceased; and a once substantial pearling and nacre (mother of pearl) collection industry has dwindled to a tiny group of hobbyists: no youth dive today. This widespread withdrawal from seafaring activity among many people in these formerly maritime-oriented communities has diminished the salience of such activity in cultural memory, and has set in motion narrative creation processes, through which memories are filtered and selected, and objects preserved, discarded, or lost. This paper is a product of the encounter of the authors with keepers of maritime memories and objects in the Farasan Islands and Jizan. An older generation of men recall memories of their experiences as boat builders, captains, seafarers, pearl divers and fishermen. Their recounted memories are inscribed, and Arabic seafaring terms recorded. The extent of the retention of maritime material cultural items as memorials is also assessed, and the rôle of individual, communal and state actors in that retention is considered. Through this reflection, it becomes clear that the extra-biological memory and archive of the region’s maritime past is sparse; that intergenerational transmission is failing; that the participation of state agencies in maritime heritage creation is highly limited; and that, as a result, memories current among the older generation have limited prospect of survival. These memories, recorded and interpreted here, identify the Farasan Islands as a former centre of the pearling industry in the Red Sea, and identify them and Jizan as open to far-reaching maritime-mediated cultural influences in an era before the imposition of the attributes of the modern nation-state.     

Archaeological Investigations in the Harbours of Burgaz,Turkey: 2011–2015 field seasons

Between 2011 and 2015 archaeological fieldwork was conducted in the Archaic through Late Antique harbours associated with Burgaz on the Datça Peninsula in south‐west Turkey. This work focused on survey and documentation of built features associated with the four harbours, limited stratigraphic excavation, and identification of shipwrecks and seafaring activity outside the harbours. The results offer new insights into the growth, expansion, and eventual abandonment of the port complex, its development alongside the urban settlement, and its changing maritime dynamics in light of economic shifts across the peninsula and the eastern Mediterranean.     

The Nautical Archaeology of Puerto Rico

The waters of Puerto Rico harbour the remains of thousands of years of human occupation. The island played a key role in the first decades of European exploration of the New World, and its coasts and estuaries have preserved an extensive record of the island's maritime history, before and after the arrival of the Europeans. The objective of this project is to study Puerto Rico's seafaring history through the investigation of its submerged cultural heritage, with a particular focus on the history of European shipbuilding. In 2008 the authors started with survey on the north coast.
© 2009 The Authors     

Modeling distance with time in ancient Mediterranean seafaring: a GIS application for the interpretation of maritime connectivity

Investigations of Mediterranean connectivity have increasingly turned toward maritime landscape models to frame questions of seaborne exploration, marine resource exploitation, trade and exchange, and seafaring culture. Environmental and technological parameters are consistently acknowledged as crucial for understanding when and why different relationships developed across the sea, but their formal employment in the modeling and interpretation of maritime space remains quite limited. The methodology outlined here utilizes Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to integrate environment and technology as analytical tools for exploring the complexity of seaborne connectivity. Focusing on sailing days as practical units of distance and using an Archaic Greek shipwreck off Turkey as a case study, this preliminary model demonstrates how a more nuanced spatial approach can inform the human geography and socioeconomic structures of ancient maritime interaction.     

Seafaring as social action

This paper builds upon traditional investigations of maritime activities, particularly seafaring itself, to study the social relationships between people and the sea as well as the technology, necessary knowledge and skills that are implicated. The research is based upon evidence of seafaring drawn from the circulation of obsidian from the island of Lipari around the central Mediterranean throughout the Neolithic c.6500–3500 BC. It focuses upon journeys across the Adriatic, identifying the importance of travel in the creation of social alliance and identity, shedding light upon relationships and practices that are generally invisible without proper consideration of maritime activity. The implications of ongoing maritime activity in the region reflect upon Neolithic activities and temporalities which are outside the sphere of settlement specific landscapes, hitherto the sole focus of the majority of Italian Neolithic research.     

Maritime Archaeology and Climate Change: An Invitation

Maritime archaeology has a tremendous capacity to engage with climate change science. The field is uniquely positioned to support climate change research and the understanding of past human adaptations to climate change. Maritime archaeological data can inform on environmental shifts and submerged sites can serve as an important avenue for public outreach by mobilizing public interest and action towards understanding the impacts of climate change. Despite these opportunities, maritime archaeologists have not fully developed a role within climate change science and policy. Moreover, submerged site vulnerabilities stemming from climate change impacts are not yet well understood. This article discusses potential climate change threats to maritime archaeological resources, the challenges confronting cultural resource managers, and the contributions maritime archaeology can offer to climate change science. Maritime archaeology’s ability to both support and benefit from climate change science argues its relevant and valuable place in the global climate change dialogue, but also reveals the necessity for our heightened engagement.     

Early seafaring activity in the southern Ionian Islands,Mediterranean Sea

This paper summarises the current development in the southern Ionian Islands (Kefallinia and Zakynthos) prehistory and places it within the context of seafaring. Archaeological data from the southern Ionian Islands show human habitation since Middle Palaeolithic going back to 110 ka BP yet bathymetry, sea-level changes and the Late Quaternary geology, show that Kefallinia and Zakynthos were insular at that time. Hence, human presence in these islands indicates inter island-mainland seafaring. Seafaring most likely started some time between 110 and 35 ka BP and the seafarers were the Neanderthals. Seafaring was encouraged by the coastal configuration, which offered the right conditions for developing seafaring skills according to the “voyaging nurseries” and “autocatalysis” concepts.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Ancient trade and society LIONEL CASSON
Underwater expeditions ROB PALMER
Vol. I. Merchant sailing ships 1775–1815: sovereignty of sail DAVID R. MACGREGOR
Vol. III. Merchant sailing ships 1850–1875: heyday of sail DAVID R. MACGREGOR
Sweet track to Glastonbury—the Somerset levels in prehistory BRYONY and JOHN COLES
Die Galeonen PETER KIRSCH
La grande époque de la marine à voile MARTINE ACERRA and JEAN MEYER
Argusgrunden—a 7000-year-old settlement on the sea-floor off south-east Denmark A. FISCHER, U. MØHL, P. BENNIKE, C. MALMROS. H. TAUBER, J. SCHOU HANSEN and P. SMED
La révolution maritime du XIXe. Sièle
Warrior —restoring the world's first ironclad ANDREW LAMBERT
The immortal Warrior —Britain's first and last battleship JOHN WELLS
Drawings of the USS Monitor —a catalog and technical analysis ERNEST W. PETERKIN
Ships, seafaring and society—essays in maritime history TIMOTHY J. RUNYAN
Sejlskibsssfolk (sailing ship people) OLE MORTENSØN     

Comments on the flint daggers of Denmark

The transition to settled farming communities in northern Europe was a far more gradual process than elsewhere in Europe: this makes it possible to study the transition to farming archaeologically at a finer level of resolution. In this paper we trace the shift to cultivation in two areas: Denmark and Finland. Despite the difference in the time scale of agricultural evolution, and despite other chronological and environmental differences, we can, in both cases, isolate three distinct stages in the transition to fanning, thus extending the process well beyond the conventional date for the shift to cultivation. Both the case studies emphasize the long continuation of foraging adaptations, and the long delay before the appearance of a predominantly agricultural economy. This delay has been caused by the development of successful maritime adaptations, which acted as a viable alternative to farming until a specific trigger—a decline in marine resources—occurred and initiated the substitution phase of the transition.     

Midden or Molehill: The Role of Coastal Adaptations in Human Evolution and Dispersal

Coastal adaptations have become an important topic in discussions about the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens. However, the actual distribution and potential relevance of coastal adaptations (broadly, the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines) in these processes remains debated, as is the claim that Neanderthals exhibited similar behaviors. To assess both questions, we performed a systematic review comparing coastal adaptations of H. sapiens during the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) with those of contemporaneous Neanderthals during the European Middle Paleolithic. In both species, systematic use of marine resources and coastal landscapes constitutes a consistent behavioral signature over?~?100,000 years (MIS 6–3) in several regions of Africa and Europe. We found more similarities than differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, with remaining disparities all in degree rather than kind. H. sapiens exploited a wider range of marine resources—particularly shellfish—more intensively. MSA shellfish-bearing sites are also more often associated with intense occupations on coastal landscapes, and more evidence of complex material culture such as shell beads. In terms of broader ramifications, Pleistocene coastal adaptations are best conceived of as an ‘add-on’ to previous adaptive strategies, complementing more frequently exploited inland resources and landscapes. Still, Neanderthals and modern humans increased their dietary breadth and quality, and added options for occupation and range expansion along coastlines. Potential evolutionary implications of these multi-generational behaviors include higher intakes of brain-selective nutrients as a basis for neurobiological changes connected to increased cognitive capacities, but also greater reproductive success, dispersal abilities and behavioral flexibility. Whether gradual differences between modern humans and Neanderthals stimulated different evolutionary trajectories is a question for future research.

     

From Pleistocene Mariners to Complex Hunter-Gatherers: The Archaeology of the California Channel Islands

California’s Channel Islands were home to some of the most distinctive Native American peoples along the Pacific Coast. Never connected to the mainland during the Quaternary, the Channel Islands have an impoverished terrestrial flora and fauna, but some of the richest and most productive marine environments in the Americas, including diverse kelp forest, intertidal, and offshore marine habitats. Native Americans occupied the Channel Islands for roughly 13,000 calendar years until the early nineteenth century, providing one of the longest and best preserved records of maritime hunter-gatherers in the Americas. We provide an overview and analysis of Channel Islands archaeology, from the relatively mobile peoples who colonized the islands during the Late Pleistocene to the complex hunter-gatherers documented by early Spanish explorers. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of Channel Islands archaeology for enhancing knowledge on a number of broad anthropological issues, including coastal and aquatic adaptations, seafaring, cultural complexity, trade and exchange, and ancient human impacts on the environment.     

Advances in the archaeology of the Pampa and Patagonia

Archaeological data reveal two distinctive cultural adaptations on the Pampa and Patagonia of Argentina: terrestrial hunter-gatherers in the former and most of the latter region and maritime hunter-gatherers along the southern extreme. Both adaptations were achieved by the end of the fifth millennium B.C. Thereafter, a stable equilibrium was maintained, with a slow drift toward greater emphasis on resources providing the maximum return for the least effort. The high productivity of the Fuegian environment sustained a population 30 times greater than occupied the Pampa and continental Patagonia prior to Araucanian penetration in the sixteenth century A.D. The long-term stability is attributable to the absence of environmental or demographic pressures or encroachments by neighboring groups, which might have made more intensive exploitation of the environment necessary.     

Subsistence variations and landscape use among maritime hunter-gatherers. A zooarchaeological analysis from the Beagle Channel (Tierra del Fuego,Argentina)

Changes in the exploitation of resources among prehistoric hunter-gatherer-fishers of the Beagle Channel (Southern South America) are examined in this paper. Archaeological investigations show the prevalence of maritime hunter-gatherer organization throughout the occupation of the region (ca. 6400 BP – 19th century). Notwithstanding, variations in the exploitation of different kind of animal resources have been detected, and a concomitant reorientation in the landscape use is then inferred. Zooarchaeological evidence from five shellmiddens is analyzed here: evenness measures and relative abundance prey types are used to evaluate such adjustments. Results indicate the major utilization of coastal and terrestrial ecozones and the predominance in the exploitation of mammals (pinnipeds and guanacos) in ancient occupations. While, during the Late Holocene an expansion in ranges of maritime mobility for subsistence is detected, which was associated with an increase in the representation of birds and fish in the zooarchaeological record.     

罗马帝国沿海路向东方的探索

罗马帝国沿海路向东方的探索,在大多数情况下是以红海水道为基地展开的,而帝国的繁荣则是罗马人航行东方的物质基础。公元一世纪,罗马人已注意到了印度与中国的贸易交往;公元二世纪,罗马人的活动范围扩展到孟加拉湾东海岸地区和整个印支半岛,并从海陆两路到达中国,同中国建立起了直接的贸易关系。希腊一罗马世界对中国的知识亦随之大为发展;公元三世纪末以后,随着帝国的衰落,特别是七世纪中叶阿拉伯伊斯兰势力的兴起,罗马人乃至整个欧洲从海路向东方的探索被完全阻断。罗马人沿海路向东方的探索,对古代中西海上丝绸之路的开通发挥了不可磨灭的作用。     

福建海洋经济可持续发展研究

文章运用综合观点全面分析福建发展海洋经济的优势条件与制约因素,着重评价了海洋经济可持续发展的资源潜力;通过对发展现状的分析,揭示了福建海洋经济发展过程面临的海洋开发与产业结构层次较低、海洋资源开发利用不尽合理,海洋污染较严重,海洋科技发展与海洋综合管理相对滞后等问题;在此基础上,从可持续发展角度上提出了福建海洋经济发展对策,并探讨了海洋经济重点产业的发展思路。     

THE EVOLUTION OF MONTREAL'S PORT SERVICE INDUSTRY

The growth of Montreal's port service industry is shown to have been accompanied by internal differentiation and elaboration. Of the many business types that comprise the service sector, forwarding appears to have played d particularly important role. The industry is also revealed to have been a catalyst in the economic development of the city, and the expansion of the port was facilitated by the commercial enterprise and political influence of the leaders of the industry.
Il est demontré que la croissance de l'industrie tertiaire maritime reliée au port de Montréal fut accompagnée de sa diversification et de son élaboration interne. Parmi les nomhreux types d'enterprises du secteur tertiaire, les transitaires ont joué un rôle important. L'industrie tertiaire maritime s'est également manifestée comme un catalyseur du développement éconornrque de la ville. De plus, l'expansion du port a été grandement facilité par le secteur commercial et l'influence politique de ses dirigeants.     

‘The Social’ and Beyond: Introducing Actor-Network Theory

In recent years, it has been suggested (e.g. TAG 2002, 2006; IKUWA3 2008) that it is necessary for the discipline to move beyond the study of ships and boats towards the ‘wider social contexts’ of seafaring and maritime activity. This paper investigates the contours of ‘social’ as an object of study. Two questions are asked: (1) how is this object defined within sociology, classical and contemporary social theory, and archaeology; and (2) what is the status of nonhumans, physical-material things, artefacts, plants, animals, etc.? After taking a look at several different theories, it is argued that it is not necessary for us to move beyond ships and boats. Instead, an alternative approach is offered, one that allows us to move beyond the restrictive ontology of the social.