C., though some islands such as Trinidad that skirt the northern South American Coast were settled even earlier when sea levels were lower. Archaic groups settled islands primarily in the northern Lesser Antilles and Puerto

Rico, particularly Antigua with its high quality lithic materials (Keegan, 2000). Archaic groups apparently bypassed or quickly moved through nearly all of the southern islands except for Barbados (Fitzpatrick, 2012) for reasons that are not well understood, though it could be related to high levels of volcanism in the region (Callaghan, 2010). Archaic populations, once thought to have been mostly aceramic and nomadic foragers who targeted seasonally available foods (Hofman and Hoogland, 2003 and Hofman et al., 2006), are now known to have produced pottery (Rodríguez Ramos, 2005 and Keegan, 2006), and brought with them a number of plant species from South America, including the Panama tree (Sterculia selleckchem apetala), yellow sapote (Pouteria campechiana), wild avocado (Persea americana), palm nutshells (Acrocomia media), primrose (Oenothera sp.), wild fig (Ficus sp.), and West Indian cherry (Malphigia

sp.) ( Newsom, 1993 and Newsom and ABT-888 mw Pearsall, 2002; see also Keegan, 1994:270; Newsom and Wing, 2004:120). Archaic groups also exploited marine and terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates, though the number of species harvested was generally few in number; there is no good evidence that these groups translocated animals to the islands. While population densities during the Archaic Age were probably low, there are signs that these groups affected local environments to some degree, including the extinction of giant sloths (Genus Phyllophaga and Senarthra) ( Steadman et al., 2005) and nine taxa of snakes, lizards, bats, birds, and rodents from sites on Antigua dating to between 2350 and 550 B.C., which are either extinct or were never recorded historically ( Steadman et al., 1984). For both cases, the timing of vertebrate extinctions is coincident with human arrival independent of major climatic Fludarabine mouse changes. Given that Antigua also has the densest concentration of Archaic Age sites in

the Lesser Antilles (with over 40 recorded, compared to other islands which may have only a few at most), these impacts to native fauna are much more likely to be anthropogenic ( Davis, 2000). During the early phase of the Ceramic Age (ca. 550 B.C.–550 A.D.), another group known as Saladoid settled the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico. While there is ongoing debate about their modes of colonization and direction they may have taken in moving into the islands (Keegan, 2000, Callaghan, 2003, Fitzpatrick, 2006 and Fitzpatrick et al., 2010), it is clear that these groups were related to those in South America based on the translocation of native South American animals and a wide array of stylistic and iconographic representations in rock art, pottery, and other artifacts such as lapidary items.