Northern West Indies (7,821–6,094 BCE) Early Holocene — River–Coast Foraging on Hispaniola; Banks as Blue Larders

Geographic and Environmental Context

Northern West Indies includes the Outer Bahamas (Lucayan archipelago), the Turks & Caicos Islands, and northern Hispaniola — northern Haiti (Cap-Haïtien, Massif du Nord) and the Cibao/north coast of the Dominican Republic (Santiago de los Caballeros, Puerto Plata).

Anchors: Andros–Abaco–Eleuthera–San Salvador–Exuma banks, Turks & Caicos banks and passes, Cap-Haïtien–Massif du Nord, Cibao–Puerto Plata–Santiago river valleys and coastal shelves.

• Mature Andros/Eleuthera lenses; Cibao fluvial belts stable; reef flats diversified.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Warm, humid optimum; storms episodic but predictable.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Northern Hispaniola: shellfish, reef fish, turtle, manatee; deer/hutía inland; camps near river mouths and beach ridges.

• Bahamas/Turks & Caicos: brief sojourns for fishing/rookeries; no durable villages.

Technology & Material Culture

• Bone gorges/harpoons, shell adzes; dugouts likely for near-shore.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• North coast canoe lanes linked Cibao estuaries; calm-season jumps onto Caicos banks.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Shell-heap cemeteries and ancestral loci begin on Hispaniola.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• River–reef coupling provided year-round protein; storm mobility critical.

Transition
By 6,094 BCE, northern Hispaniola underwrote stable Archaic lifeways; the banks were known but lightly used.