On the reconstruction of prehistoric social territories: The La Désirade lithic workshops and the distribution of La Désirade chert (French West Indies)

Abstract

The widespread presence of raw materials suitable for the production of stone tools on the south-eastern part of La Desirade, a small island east of Guadeloupe (French West Indies), is an interesting feature as these materials cannot be obtained on most of the neighbouring limestone islands. Small amounts of lithic off-site material have been found all over the south-eastern part of La Desirade, indicating that this area was incidentally used for the exploitation of local raw materials for the production of lithic artefacts. Concentrated and repeated activity, related to the exploitation of La Desirade chert, took place at four lithic workshops. This paper aims to reconstruct social and economic patterns, which may shed a light on prehistoric Amerindian territoriality and mobility, based on the exploitation and distribution of this local raw material. An inventory was made of sites where La Desirade chert was exploited and worked and of sites where this material showed up in the form of worked items. The La Desirade chert has been found in several prehistoric site assemblages outside La Desirade itself. However, it turns out to have a very restricted distribution, not exceeding 30 km distances from the raw material occurrences. The authors concluded that exploiting these sources may have been embedded in the general procurement strategy of the seafaring communities involved and that the observed distribution may demonstrate the extent of the territory of closely related communities that exploited a similar catchment area.