The Indians of the Circum-Caribbean at the End of the Fifteenth Century.
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Mary W. Helms, Emeritus Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: At the end of the fifteenth century A.D. the lands surrounding the
Caribbean Sea were densely populated with people who were frequently
organized into rank societies or chiefdoms of varying degrees of
complexity. Among these polities two major spheres of political
interaction can be delineated. The centre of one was the northern half
of Colombia, with lower Central America (Panama and Costa Rica) and
northern Venezuela as regional extensions to west and east, respectively.
The centre of the other was the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
in the Greater Antilles including Jamaica and Cuba. Geographically
intermediate between these areas of higher political development, and
in some ways linking them culturally, were the peoples of the Lesser
Antilles, north-eastern Venezuela and the Venezuelan llanos (plains)
north and west of the Orinoco river whose organization was less
complex. On the periphery of the circum-Caribbean territories, that is,
in eastern Nicaragua and Honduras, the Orinoco delta, and small
portions of Cuba and Hispaniola, a few societies continued to exist at
a still lower, tribal, level of cultural development.
The Indians of the Circum-Caribbean at the End of the Fifteenth Century.
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Language: English
- Date: 1984
- Keywords
- Caribbean, societies, anthropology, chiefdoms, central america, 15th century, native americans