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This paper responds to questions posed by archaeologists and engineers in the humanitarian sector about relationships between shelter, disasters and resilience. Enabled by an increase in horizontal excavations combined with high-resolution settlement data from excavations in the Dominican Republic, the paper presents a synthesis of Caribbean house data spanning a millennium (1400 BP- 450 BP). An analysis of architectural traits identify the house as an institution that constitutes and catalyses change in an emergent and resilient pathway. The “Caribbean architectural mode” emerged in a period of demographic expansion and cultural transition, was geographically widespread, different from earlier and mainland traditions and endured the hazards of island and coastal ecologies. We use archaeological analysis at the house level to consider the historical, ecological and regional dimensions of resilience in humanitarian action

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This article challenges received thinking relating to the interpretation of Bronze Age finds from the seabed in the waters of northwestern Europe, especially the North Sea and Channel area. Metal objects recovered from the sea are traditionally presumed to be the result of shipwrecks. As such, their interpretation as casual, if unfortunate loss is unquestioned. However, abandoning the shipwreck scenario as a remnant of the 'sacred vs profane' heuristic, it is suggested that offshore finds could provide insight into deliberate Bronze Age maritime practice, rather than misadventure. Certain patterning in the data of offshore finds, including affinities with hoards on terra firma, urges another interpretive frameworkthat of considering the sea as a place for deposition. This appeared to be the case particularly in regions which experienced an intensity of maritime interaction, such as the Channel area during the later Bronze Age. From this it is hypothesized that rather than being considered outside the Bronze Age social realm, the sea, especially in the MBA to earlier LBA in the Channel area, was incorporated into Bronze Age cosmology in similar ways to other zones in the landscape.

The history of Mona Island and her transitory and permanent communities provides an interesting perspective on the role this small island has played over the long-term in spheres of maritime interaction in the Caribbean and further afield. In particular, we examine the role that the extraordinary cave systems have played in attracting people to the island and into the subterranean realm within. Through a recent study of the extant historical sources and archaeological evidence for past human activity on the island, we trace this historical landscape and seascape in order to review the importance of Mona in wider regional dynamics through time.

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Recent archaeological fieldwork on Isla de Mona in the Caribbean has led to the discovery of a substantial corpus of early colonial inscriptions inside the darkzone of one of the 200 cave systems on the island. Cave 18, like multiple others on Isla de Mona, was a well-established indigenous spiritual realm in the centuries leading up to European colonization. Christian symbols, individual names, written dates, and Spanish and Latin religious commentaries are located in direct association with preexisting indigenous iconography and activities. This paper applies paleographic (handwriting) analysis to establish the authenticity, authorship, and chronology of the inscriptions and to interpret the nature of this early spiritual encounter. We conclude that these sixteenth-century inscriptions represent visits to the cave by first-generation Europeans, including Spanish royal officials in Puerto Rico, and reflect their reactions to native religious landscapes. The inscriptions on Isla de Mona capture personal, face-to-face encounters with native religion and represent Christian commentaries and reactions to indigenous spaces and worldview in the early colonial period.