Ethnoarchaeological Consideration of Social Relationship and Settlement Patterning Among Africans in the Caribbean Diaspora

This paper discusses models of ethnoarchaeology. The crucial consideration should be an orientation towards an explicitly well-defined interface between models drawn from modern traditional behavior and those of the past. This is the main principle which forms the basis of the discussion of this paper. This approach was the obvious choice mainly because of the availability of the type of evidence in Africa and the African disapora that would permit observed continuities with the past. However, ethnoarchaeology should not be considered as an end in itself, but as one of the many tools which can be used to refine our explanation for understanding of past human behavior. More than any other branch of archaeological science, with the exception of the study of the origins of man, ethnoarchaeology continues to attract a large following although many of its practitioners often adopt the complacent strategy of evading crucial methodological issues