lEWKEsJ CONCLUSIONS 267 



like kinship. It is Bot known whether the separation of these islands 

 was before or after man's advent. 



The Bahamas, forming the third geological area, are low coral 

 islands, closely connected geologically with the adjacent peninsula 

 of Florida, Init not mountainous like the other two divisions. 

 Culturally and biologically the Bahamas have relations on the one 

 side to the adjacent regions of North America and on the other to the 

 neighboring islands, Cuba and Porto Kico. The cultural features 

 follow in distribution the fauna and flora, as might be expected. 



From the chronological point of view the evidence of the archeo- 

 logical objects above recorded indicates a longer occupation of all 

 areas considered and a distinct cultural development in those areas. 

 In other words, it aj^pears that while there has been a process of 

 acculturation going on throughout the West Indies there has been 

 a specialized development of culture in the different groups of 

 islands. If we compare the antiquities of the Greater Antilles with 

 those of the Lesser we readily note these important differences, 

 which have been emphasized in previous contributions to the study 

 of the aborigines of these islands. Two distinct cultures, one of 

 which may be called the Tainan, the other pre-Carib, are evident. 

 The Tainan was that of an agricultural people, and we may conjec- 

 ture that the ancestors of the Tainans settled the islands in very 

 ancient times before specialized features which distinguish that cul- 

 ture had been developed. This pre-Carib colonization formerly ex- 

 tended over the whole Lesser Antilles and took place before written 

 history began. It was replaced by waves of Carib immigration from 

 South America, being submerged in all the Lesser Antilles as far 

 north as the Virgin Islands. These waves of Carib invasion, over- 

 running these islands, radically changed the character of Antillean 

 culture. The Carib killed the men and appropriated the women, the 

 result being a mixed race, in which the arts of the preexisting Tainan 

 people were appropriated. Evidence of this mixture may be found 

 in the difference between the language of the men and the women, 

 to which attention was called by Columbus and the early travelers; 

 tlie women, who were the slave wives of the Carib, retaining the 

 language of the conquered, the men speaking a tongue akin to the 

 Carib on the Orinoco. Most of the objects called Carib, especially 

 ceramics and basketry, which represent the prehistoric Lesser An- 

 tilles, belonged to a submerged culture. Although represented in 

 such abundance in archeological collections from the Lesser Antilles, 

 they do not occur in the same abundance or have the same charac- 

 teristics among the Carib on the continent of South America. They 

 are characteristic of an epoch -'" previous to the submergence of the 

 island people by the Carib. 



""So Ions !>« all thp artifacts found on nn island are arbitrarily assigned to tlip same 

 culture epoch archeology will be unscientific. 



