Starch analysis and isotopic evidence of consumption of cultigens among fisher-gatherers in Cuba: the archaeological site of Canímar Abajo, Matanzas

The use of cultigens and wild plants by pre-contact populations is well established in all regions of the circum-Caribbean and Greater Antilles except for Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean. We examine a population traditionally understood by Cuban archaeologists as “fisher-gatherers” from the shell-matrix site of Canímar Abajo, Cuba to examine subsistence practices using a combination of starch evidence from dental calculus, aided by human bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotope based probability analyses (Stable Isotope Analysis in R; SIAR). This dual analysis suggests that two chronologically distinct “fisher-gatherer” Cuban populations (11 adult skeletons from the older cemetery component, 1380-800 BCE; 23 adult skeletons from the younger cemetery component, 360-950 CE) from Canímar Abajo used at least two species of cultigens (beans and maize and/or sweet potatoes) along with wild plant species and various readily available estuarine, marine and terrestrial animal resources.