Arie Boomert

Biography

      Arie Boomert (b.1946) studied cultural anthropology and cultural prehistory at the University of Amsterdam (BA, 1968; MA, with honours, 1972) and Leiden University (PhD, 2000). He worked as an archaeologist at subsequently the Surinaams Museum, Paramaribo, Suriname (1973-1975), Leiden University (1976-1978), the University of Amsterdam (1979-1980), and the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad (1980-1988), and as a desk editor at PlantijnCasparie Heerhugowaard (1988-2004).

      Since 2004 he is employed as a lecturer in archaeology at Leiden University. Besides, he functioned as a director of the International Association for Caribbean Archaeology (1983-1987) and as a member of the Advisary Board of Antropológica, Fundación La Salle, Caracas, Venezuela (1983-1999). His present teaching duties include BA and MA courses on the archaeology of the South American tropical lowlands and the Caribbean next to the supervision of both BA and MA Theses.

      Boomert is the author of over fifty publications, including articles in scholarly journals, papers in congress proceedings, contributions to encyclopaedias and edited works, book reviews and two monographs. His research interests include the archaeology, ethnohistory and historical linguistics of the Caribbean and Amazonia, more specifically Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands, the Orinoco Valley, and the coastal zone of Venezuela and the Guianas. His present research focuses on: (1) the archaeological, ethnohistorical and anthropological aspects of the patterns of exchange and interaction in Caribbean prehistory, as compared to those of especially Oceania; (2) the methodology and principles of approaches to ‘island archaeology’; (3) archaeological investigations at the Cedrosan Saladoid site of Cedros, Southwest Trinidad; and (4) the analysis of the Troumassan and Suazan Troumassoid ceramics of the Golden Grove, Lovers’ Retreat, and Great Courland Bay sites of Tobago.

Abstract

The horticulturalist colonization of the Caribbean: current status of research

Reconstructing the ‘peopling and repeopling’of the Caribbean archipelago has been one of the major focuses of Ben Rouse’s research throughout his academic career. To this end he developed an essentially phylogenetic system of archaeological classification which, albeit not uncriticized, is still widely employed for purposes of cultural taxonomy in the West Indies. Applying anthropological theories of migration and using archaeological, linguistic and archaeogenetic data, this paper investigates the movement into the Caribbean of the region’s first fully horticulturalist settlers, the peoples of the Saladoid ceramic series, who started to enter the West Indies from the mainland of South America by about 350 BC. Besides, similarities and differences are noted between the Saladoid colonization of the Caribbean and the first horticulturalist movement, that of the Lapita cultural complex, into another tropical insular realm, Oceania.