New findings by scientists from Simon Fraser University and the NAAM Foundation reveal that Curaçao was settled by people as much as 850 years previously than previously believed, providing brand-new insights into Caribbean pre-Columbian history and highlighting the importance of archaeological fieldwork and neighborhood engagement. The image above illustrates a rusty shipwreck on the island.New research study develops that people occupied Curaçao between 5735 and 5600 calibrated years before present (cal BP). This finding recommends that the island was populated as much as 850 years earlier than earlier price quotes had indicated.New research study co-led by Simon Fraser University and the National Archaeological Anthropological Memory Management (NAAM Foundation) in Curaçao has pushed back the date of the islands earliest known human habitation by several hundred years, contributing new insights into the history of the Caribbean before the arrival of Columbus.A team of worldwide partners has actually been teaming up on the Curaçao Cultural Landscape Project because 2018 to comprehend the long-term biodiversity change of the island, and its relationship to human activity.Findings from the group, published in the Journal of Coastal and Island Archaeology, put the human occupation of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean, as far back as 5735– 5600 cal BP– approximately 850 years earlier than previously thought.This updated timeline was identified by radiocarbon dating charcoal collected from an Archaic duration website at Saliña Sint Marie– what is now the earliest known archaeological website on the island– using sped up mass spectrometry.Insights into Caribbean SettlementChristina Giovas, an associate professor in SFUs Department of Archaeology and co-lead on the research study, discusses that the settlement of the Caribbean and the origin of its individuals is still highly debated. “What this new info does is push the initial expedition in this area back to a time where other islands to the north of Curaçao are likewise being settled. This suggests that the movement of people from the continental mainland into those more northern islands may have entangled with a few of the movement of the individuals into Curaçao,” says Giovas.While more work is required to figure out if this holds true, Giovas keeps in mind that this suggests that the expedition of the islands off the western Venezuelan coast began earlier than formerly known and supplies a standard for studying human-environment interactions in the area. According to NAAM Deputy Director, Claudia Kraan, who also led the study, the finding shows to the local public that further research study can unveil brand-new insights into individuals who when populated the island. She notes, “Archaeological info is vibrant, constantly evolving with continuous expedition and analysis.”Educational and Community EngagementThe team took a trip to Curaçao in the summertime of 2022 for their very first field season, bringing with them an accomplice of SFU archaeology undergraduate students as part of a five-week worldwide field school. Trainees assisted study, map, and excavate project websites throughout the island, then presented their findings to the local community. Throughout these activities, they worked carefully with regional volunteers and the tasks Curaçaoan partner, the NAAM Foundation, an NGO that manages the islands historical heritage through collaboration with federal government and stakeholders.”For archaeology, useful hands-on knowing is truly the best way to understand the field,” states Giovas. “I truly desired trainees to get abilities in whats called ecological archaeology– strategies and methods that are utilized to ask questions about human relationships with the environment, in the past and through time. Its also progressively about what we can take from the information that we gather from those sorts of investigations and use to modern-day preservation, and environmental awareness.”The task also works to increase local capacity for archaeology on the island, create opportunities for understanding mobilization, and bring awareness to the depth of history of the location.”To have trainees involved in these initiatives is, I believe, where you get these generational shifts in the culture of the discipline,” states Giovas.The group prepares to return to Curaçao once again in 2025 as part of another SFU worldwide field school to dive deeper into how people have actually changed the island throughout time, and the lessons we can discover for future conservation efforts.Reference: “Radiocarbon dates from Curaçaos oldest Archaic website extend earliest island settlement to ca. 5700 cal BP” by Claudia T. Kraan, Michiel Kappers, Kelsey M. Lowe, S. Yoshi Maezumi and Christina M. Giovas, 12 March 2024, The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology.DOI: 10.1080/ 15564894.2024.2321575 Along with SFU and the NAAM Foundation, the group includes partners from Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, University of Queensland, and InTerris Registries.