Abstract
Bahamian hutias (Geocapromys ingrahami) are the only endemic terrestrial mammal in The Bahamas and are currently classified as a vulnerable species. Drawing on zooarchaeological and new geochemical datasets, this study investigates human management of Bahamian hutias as cultural practice at indigenous Lucayan settlements in The Bahamas and the Turks & Caicos Islands. In order to determine how hutia diet and distribution together were influenced by Lucayan groups we conducted isotopic analysis on native hutia bone and tooth enamel recovered at the Major’s Landing site on Crooked Island in The Bahamas and introduced hutias from the Palmetto Junction site on Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Results indicate that some hutias consumed 13C-enriched foods that were either provisioned or available for opportunistic consumption. Strontium isotope ratios for hutia tooth enamel show a narrow range consistent with local origin for all of the archaeological specimens. In contrast, analysis of strontium isotopes in modern Bahamian hutia teeth from animals relocated to Florida from The Bahamas demonstrates that these animals rapidly lost their Bahamian signature and adopted a Florida signature. Therefore, strontium should be used cautiously for determining hutia provenance, particularly for individuals that were translocated between islands. Overall, our findings suggest that ancient human presence did not always result in hutia vulnerability and that the impact to hutia populations was variable across pre-Columbian indigenous settlements.
Highlights
Across the Caribbean archipelago, zooarchaeological datasets are crucial to documenting the deep history of human impacts on mammalian natural history through time [1,2,3]
Archaeologists and biologists have suggested that some hutia taxa were intentionally managed by pre-Columbian people [12, 14,15,16,17,18] based on evidence such as the intentional translocation of some taxa beyond their native ranges and variable relative abundances of hutia remains across different pre-Columbian sites (e.g., Geocapromys ingrahami [14,15,16]; Capromys sp. [19, 20]; Isolobodon portoricensis [10, 18]; Plagiodontia aedium [10])
We do not know the exact timing of human-hutia interactions after Lucayan colonization of The Bahamas, the zooarchaeological data along with the isotopic data from Major’s Landing and Palmetto Junction indicate that some hutia populations were accessing human landscapes and were available for human exploitation well into the 14th and 15th centuries
Summary
Across the Caribbean archipelago, zooarchaeological datasets are crucial to documenting the deep history of human impacts on mammalian natural history through time [1,2,3]. Of at least 24 documented hutia species, only 11 are living today This astonishing rate of extinction is readily attributed to a long history of human activities and anthropogenic impacts on hutia habitats and population size [1, 3, 10, 11]. Archaeologists and biologists have suggested that some hutia taxa were intentionally managed by pre-Columbian people [12, 14,15,16,17,18] based on evidence such as the intentional translocation of some taxa beyond their native ranges and variable relative abundances of hutia remains across different pre-Columbian sites Despite ample evidence for hutia exploitation and translocation in the past, empirically identifying ancient hutia management in the Caribbean requires the integration of multiple datasets (e.g., zooarchaeological, geochemical, biochemical) [21]
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