Paths From Babel: To the Bahamas

 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Genesis 11:9

"The first explorers and settlers in the Caribbean islands were Amerindians from South America, who migrated north through the Lesser Antilles and eventually into the Bahamian archipelago.

 

At European contact, the inhabitants of The Bahamas were the Lucayans. It has been debated whether they originated from Cuba or Hispaniola, but a recent study suggests they migrated into the Bahamian archipelago from Hispaniola and Jamaica by 800 AD.

The earliest known Lucayan settlements in The Bahamas are the Three Dog Site on San Salvador, which was occupied from 600 to 900 AD, and the Coralie Site on Grand Turk, occupied 650 to 885 AD.

“The Bahamas were the last place colonized by people in the Caribbean region, and previous physical evidence indicated that it may have taken hundreds of years for the Lucayans to move through the Bahamian archipelago that spans about 500 miles,” said Dr. Peter van Hengstum.

“While people were present in Florida at the end of the last ice age, these people never crossed the Florida Straits to nearby Bahamian islands, only 50-65 miles away.”

“The oldest archaeological sites in the southernmost Bahamian archipelago from the Turks and Caicos Islands indicate human arrival likely by 700 AD,” he added.

“But in the northern Bahamian Great Abaco Island, the earliest physical evidence of human occupation are skeletons preserved in sinkholes and blueholes.”

“These two skeletons from Abaco date from 1200 to 1300 AD. Our

new record of landscape disturbance from people indicates that slash-and-burn agriculture likely began around 830 AD, meaning the Lucayans rapidly migrated through the Bahamian archipelago in likely a century, or spanning just a few human generations.”

According to the team, the arrival of Lucayans by about 830 AD is demarcated by increased burning and followed by landscape disturbance and a shift from hardwoods and palms to the modern pine forest.

Considering that Lucayan settlements in the southern Bahamian archipelago are dated to about 750 AD, these results demonstrate that Lucayans spread rapidly through the archipelago in less than 100 years.

The pine forests of Abaco declined substantially between 1500 and 1670 AD, a period of increased regional hurricane activity, coupled with fires on an already human-impacted landscape.

“The pollen record indicates that the pre-contact forest was not significantly impacted earlier in the record during known times when intense hurricane strike events were more frequent,” Dr. van Hengstum said." SciNews