Stone carvings from the Lucayan archipelago: anthropomorphic celts, monolithic axes and zoomorphic figures/pestles

Abstract

A small assemblage of stone carvings – monolithic axes, figural celts and
pestles – were recovered from the Lucayan archipelago (The Bahamas
and Turks and Caicos Islands) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
and are now held in museum collections. The majority have very little
associated information, but “excavating” museum archives, consulting historic
publications, and building a corpus of surviving examples can expand their
interpretive value. They were imported to the islands, most likely as finished
objects from neighboring Hispaniola and/or Cuba in the period ca. AD 800 to
1500. They may have been used to consolidate alliances and support mutually
beneficial exchange within an expanding economic and political network.