Antique map image from oldworldauctions.com
archived auction Lot 375
By: Coronelli/Nolin Subject: Caribbean Date: 1742
Archipelague du Mexique
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Monthly Archives: March 2010
Lukka Kaya – People of the Islands
Two near neighbors of the Turks and Caicos, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Cuba, have been inhabited since AD 1 by Amerindian “Guanahacibibes”, hunters and gatherers who most likely traveled by way of the Yucatan channel. By Ad 500 descendants of the Guiana’s and Venezuela were moving south to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. They brought new practices; swidden agriculture, canoe building, and pottery making, specifically a bright red Saladoid pottery making style that made their settlements easily identifiable for archeologists. Unlike their predecessors who had to migrate when their diet resources were scarce, villages were occupied for years thanks to cultivation of staple foods such as manioc (yucca or cassava), beans, peppers, and sweet potatoes. Over time these groups of South American descendants eventually grew to become knows as a single people who referred to themselves as Taino, meaning “noble” in their native language. The earliest Taino habitation to be found to date in the entire Bahamian archipelago, lies on Grand Turk. It has been concluded that around AD 750 Taino’s from the northern coast of Hispaniola arrived by canoe on Turks and Caicos shores. Centuries of evolution in farming, fishing, boat building, salt collecting, wood carving, language, ritual, and religion later, these Taino’s of the Bahamian archipelago had culturally evolved into the Lukka Kaya, “People of the Islands”.
This post is a summary of “Our First Colonists: The Pre–Columbian People of the Turks and Caicos Islands” by Josiah Marvel, Chapter 7 in A History of the Turks and Caicos Islands Ed. Dr. Carlton Mills
Halimeda
Previous post photo courtesy of Wikimedia, photo above courtesy of PKS (pepperkeystacie).
Halimeda and Penicillus
Sounds like something out of mythology, but Halimeda and Penicillus are not Greek gods, they are actually algae species, two of the most common in the Turks and Caicos. Using sunlight and chlorophyll they extract calcium carbonate from seawater. They grow rapidly but expire rapidly too, at which point the organic portion of the algae dissolves into crystals which are expelled onto the ocean floor. (I think that’s a visual to be filed for painting inspiration, crystals slowly meandering to the bottom of the sea). Halimeda segments make up a major component of sand, and Penicillus, particles of marl, the fine white mud covering the banks. The coral reefs surrounding the islands are also a calcium carbonate producer, simultaneously providing homes for many organisms that are also producing the shallow water carbonate; shellfish, sea urchins, and sponges. These results of sedimentation are how the Turks and Caicos Islands were formed, and are continuing to form today. As mountain peaks and most land masses are slowly shrinking from erosion, these islands are perpetually expanding.
This post is a summary of a portion of Brian Riggs article “Geology of the Turks and Caicos Islands,” chapter 2 in A History of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Ed. Dr. Carlton Mills
Inaugural Post
It seems only natural that the birth of this blog be about the birth of “Les Isles Caiquos,” the archipelago now known as the Turks and Caicos Islands. Looking at a globe you can barely see the specks, but scientists have discovered that these islands, and the Bahamas, never fit into the Pangaea puzzle, there simply was not room for them. Studies have found the majority of the continents contain volcanic rock that dates back billions of years, while the T.C.I. and the Bahamas contain rock, various types of limestone, only about 150 million years old, even from samples taken 20,000 feet underground. Limestone is comprised mainly of calcium carbonate which can be formed both chemically and biologically. Chemically speaking, calcium carbonate sweats, or forms precipitation, in shallow, warm sea water. A rise in sea temperature and a “gentle agitation of the wind over the banks” create tiny solid pellets called ooids (bet you never knew about that word). These ooids look like miniature eggs under the microscope (image above) and they float around gathering layers of calcium carbonate until they have enough weight to sink to the bottom, where they pick up additional minerals from the seabed. If your planning on taking a walk on Grace Bay beach, your bare feet will be immersed in oolitic sand, you’ll be strolling on a pile it took hundreds of thousands of years to create. More to come on the biological contribution of limestone in forming the Turks and Caicos. This post is a summary of a portion of Brian Riggs article “Geology of the Turks and Caicos Islands.”
