In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of the New World,
initiating a cultural collision between the Old and New Worlds that
would profoundly alter the course of history.  Within thirty years,
the native peoples of the Islands of the Caribbean had suffered
massive population loss and cultural dislocation and European
plantations had begun to take the places of native villages and
chiefdoms.  Pirates and privateers ruled the seas.

Who were the people who greeted Columbus?  How did they live?  How did
they respond to contact with Europeans?  How did the contact between
Europeans and native peoples change the ways of life of both groups?
Were there differences between the ways the Spanish, English, French,
and Dutch used the new lands they seized?  In this course, we will
examine issues of culture contact and culture change on the islands of
the Caribbean through the lens of archaeology.  We will begin with the
prehistoric peoples of the Caribbean and then address the contact
period.  We will end with a look at the plantation period and the era
of piracy in the Caribbean Sea.