Portals to the Lucayan Past: Methods and Techniques

Donald and Kathy Gerace were always interested in and supportive of our and other's attempts to expand the boundaries of archaeological knowledge. During our 20+ years of archaeological research under the auspices of the Gerace Research Centre, we and others have introduced new methods and techniques to the study of Lucayan and Caribbean archaeology. Our technical contributions include the application of various forms of macrobotanical, phytolith, and starch grain studies; the use of digital studies to the analysis of shell bead production; the development of a mold-making technique to the analysis of basketry-and textile-impressed pottery; and lithic use-wear analysis. The incorporation of these techniques and those of our colleagues has yielded exciting findings, which we discuss in our next paper.