Eastern West Indies (6,093–4,366 BCE) Middle Holocene — Archaic Archipelago

Geographic and Environmental Context

Eastern West Indies includes eastern Haiti and most of the Dominican Republic (excluding the northern fringe), Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles (Anguilla → Aruba), and Trinidad & Tobago

Anchors: Vega Real–Santo Domingo valleys; Puerto Rico (Cordillera Central & coastal plains); Virgin Islands passes; Leewards/Windwards (Guadeloupe–Dominica–Martinique–St. Lucia–Barbados–St. Vincent–Grenada–Aruba); Trinidad & Tobago at the Orinoco gate.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Recurrent bayside camps; some semi-sedentary villages; coastal gardens/tended groves (proto-arboriculture).

Technology & Material Culture

• Bone hooks, nets, shell adzes; dugouts.

Technology & Corridors

• Nets/weirs refined; canoe freight among Leewards/Windwards; Trinidad & Tobago mediate Orinoco linkages

Symbolism & Adaptation

• Ancestor stones; feasting cycles; reef–grove redundancy.

Transition

• Ready for ceramic horticulturalists,