Research Catalog

Title

The people who discovered Columbus : the prehistory of the Bahamas / William F. Keegan.

Author

Keegan, William F.

Publication

Gainesville : University Press of Florida, c1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xx, 279 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

• For the Lucayan Tainos of the Caribbean, the year 1492 marked the beginning of the end: the first people contacted by Christopher Columbus were the first extinguished. Within thirty years, a population of perhaps 80,000 had declined to, at most, a few refugees. Clearing new ground in the study of prehistoric societies, William Keegan argues that a different perspective on the past provides an accurate portrait of a culture that became extinct almost 500 years ago.
• Keegan's terms his approach paleoethnography, developing a portrait of the past by linking archaeological field data and historical documents. The result, the first overview of the prehistory of the Bahamas, explains how and why the Bahamas were colonized by the Tainos almost 1,400 years ago. The portrait includes characteristics of the islands themselves, descriptions of how the Lucayan made their settlements, what they ate, how they organized in social groups, and how.
• Their population spread throughout the archipelago. Keegan reconstructs Columbus's voyage through the West Indies, raising questions about the explorer's motivations and presenting a controversial theory about where, exactly, Columbus landed. Offering new perspectives on Caribbean prehistory to both scholars and general readers, the book ends with the Spaniards' arrival and the Lucayans' demise.

Series Statement

• Columbus quincentenary series
• Ripley P. Bullen series

Uniform Title

• Columbus quincentenary series.
• Ripley P. Bullen series.

Subject

• Lucayan Indians > Antiquities
• Lucayan Indians > History
• Indians of the West Indies > Bahamas > Antiquities
• Archaeology and history > Bahamas
• Bahamas > Antiquities

Genre/Form

• History
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-269) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Before the Beginning: Native Peoples of the West Indies -- 2. Introduction to the Geology, Geography, Climate, and Ecology of the Pre-Columbian Bahamas -- 3. The Taino Colonization of the Bahamas -- 4. Settlement and Settlers: Lucayan Settlement Patterns -- 5. Honor Thy Mother's Brother: Lucayan Social and Political Organization -- 6. Diet for a Small Island: Lucayan Subsistence Economy -- 7. Population and Procreation: Lucayan Demography -- 8. Christopher Columbus and the City of Gold -- 9. Las Islas de Lucayos, 1499-1520 -- 10. After the End: Reflections on a Paleoethnography.

ISBN

081301137X

LCCN

^^^92003773^

OCLC

• 25317702
• SCSB-10348066

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library