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

A small assemblage of stone carvings – monolithic axes, figural celts andpestles – were recovered from the Lucayan archipelago (The Bahamasand Turks and Caicos Islands) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries,and are now held in museum collections. The majority have very littleassociated information, but “excavating” museum archives, consulting historicpublications, and building a corpus of surviving examples can expand theirinterpretive value. They were imported to the islands, most likely as finishedobjects from neighboring Hispaniola and/or Cuba in the period ca. AD 800 to1500. They may have been used to consolidate alliances and support mutuallybeneficial exchange within an expanding economic and political network.