William F Keegan

Biographic Data

ID104308
NAMEWilliam F Keegan
GIVEN NAMESWilliam F
FAMILY NAMEKeegan
SIGNATUREKEEGAN W F
AFFILIATIONSFlorida Museum of Natural History
ORCID0000-0002-1182-5361
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS65
TOTAL CITATIONS551
AUTHOR COUNT64
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1985
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX14

  • Palmetto Ware Pottery of the Lucayan Islands: Reverse Engineering a Novel Pottery Type

    Open AccessLindsay Bloch, Emily C Kracht et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2025References: 11

  • Island Colonization and Human-Environment Interactions on the Edges of the Tropics: Archaeology of the Taíno Frontier (Northern Bahamas)

    William F Keegan, David W Steadman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Field Archaeology2023References: 48

    Variability across frontiers and boundaries challenges the resilience of expanding populations. Here, we contribute to a broader understanding of global patterns of island colonization and expose the diversity of lifeways experienced across the Taíno culture area by exploring Lucayan settlement of the small subtropical islands of the northern Bahama archipelago. The results of this first comprehensive investigation document the rapid expansion an…

  • Taíno Indian Myth and Practice: The Arrival of the Stranger King

    William F KeeganBOOKTaíno Indian Myth and Practice2022

  • Production of Greater Antillean pottery and its exchange to the Lucayan Islands: A compositional study

    Open AccessEmily C Kracht, Lindsay Bloch et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2022Cited by: 3References: 15

  • Real, Recent, or Replica: Precolumbian Caribbean Heritage as Art, Commodity, and Inspiration , by Joanna Ostapkowicz & Jonathan A. Hanna (eds.)

    Open AccessWilliam F KeeganARTICLENew West Indian Guide / Nieuwe…2022

  • Is It Better to Be Objectively Wrong or Subjectively Right: Testing the Accuracy and Consistency of the Munsell Capsure Spectrocolorimeter for Archaeological Applications

    Open AccessLindsay Bloch, Jacob D Hosen et al.ARTICLEAdvances in Archaeological Practice2021Cited by: 1References: 7

    For many years, archaeologists have relied on Munsell Soil Color Charts (MSCC) as tools for standardizing the recording of soil and sediment colors in the field and artifacts such as pottery in the lab. Users have identified multiple potential sources of discrepancy in results, such as differences in inter-operator perception, light source, or moisture content of samples. In recent years, researchers have developed inexpensive digital methods for…

  • Unique Lucayan sand dune burials at the Rolling Heads site, Long Island, The Bahamas

    Open AccessWilliam F Keegan, Colleen B Young et al.ARTICLEInternational Journal of…2021Cited by: 1References: 5

    The skeletal remains of nearly 100 Indigenous Bahamians, called Lucayans, have been recovered in the Bahama archipelago (Lucayan Islands). Until now, virtually, all were recovered from wet and dry caves, caverns, and blue holes, most of which lacked specific evidence for mortuary practices. In the aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015, two human crania were found on Lowe's Beach, Long Island, The Bahamas. In addition, two burial areas we…

  • Human–environment interactions in a Bahamian dune landscape: A geoarchaeological study of a new Lucayan burial site

    Open AccessJonathan A Hanna, Michael P Pateman et al.ARTICLEGeoarchaeology2021Cited by: 5References: 13

    Investigations were undertaken following the discovery of two Lucayan burials in an Atlantic coast sand dune on Long Island, The Bahamas (site LN‐101), in the aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin in 2015. The dune burials were the first of their kind to be documented and systematically excavated, and they were associated with uncommon Atlantic coast Lucayan sites. We describe the first systematic archaeological prospection and investigation of coastal …

  • Cooking with corals: The Bahamas experiments

    Open AccessWilliam F Keegan, Michael Pateman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2020Cited by: 1References: 10

  • Child labor in Saladoid St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. (300–500 CE)

    Open AccessWilliam F Keegan, Lisabeth A Carlson et al.ARTICLEJournal of Anthropological…2019

  • The paleoecology and extinction of endemic tortoises in the Bahamian Archipelago

    Open AccessDavid W Steadman, Nancy A Albury et al.ARTICLEThe Holocene2019References: 4

    No native species of tortoises ( Chelonoidis spp.) live today in the Bahamian (Lucayan) Archipelago (= The Bahamas + The Turks and Caicos Islands), although a number of species inhabited these islands at the first human contact in the late-Holocene. Until their extinction, tortoises were the largest terrestrial herbivores in the island group. We report 16 accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates determined directly on individ…

  • Determining precolonial botanical foodways: Starch recovery and analysis, Long Island, The Bahamas

    Open AccessA J Ciofalo, William F Keegan et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2018Cited by: 10References: 28

  • Bahamian hutia ( Geocapromys ingrahami ) in the Lucayan Realm: Pre-Columbian Exploitation and Translocation

    Michelle J Lefebvre, Geoffrey DuChemin et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Archaeology2018Cited by: 8References: 9

    Bahamian hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami) are endemic to The Bahamas. The skeletal remains of this species have been recovered from multiple Lucayan-associated archaeological sites in the region, suggesting that it was an important source of human food. This study explores the role of pre-Columbian indigenous peoples in the geographic distribution of Bahamian hutias, and the possibility of intentional management of the animal. We provide an overview…

  • Caribbean Kinship as Instituted Process

    William F KeeganARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2018Cited by: 3References: 34

    Islands are colonized by organized groups of people. This paper examines the ways in which the economy of colonizing groups is embedded in kinship institutions. This perspective emerged from substantivist and institutional economics, which both recognize economizing as embedded in kinship. Moreover, the formalist/substantivist debate highlighted the differences between empirical and theoretical perspectives, and the importance of societal norms i…

  • Remote cays and the pre-Columbian colonisation of The Bahamas

    Open AccessWilliam F Keegan, Michael P Pateman et al.ARTICLEAntiquity2018References: 3

    Recent research investigating the origins of Bahama archipelago habitation conducted archaeological surveys on the remote Bahamian Guinchos Cay and Cay Lobos. A complete lack of prehistoric evidence, however, suggests that they played no significant role in the colonisation of The Bahamas

  • The Meillacoid and Chicoid Worlds

    William F Keegan, C L HofmanCHAPTERCaribbean Before Columbus2017

    This chapter considers the likelihood that Meillacoid and Chicoid represent contemporaneous social groups, and not sequential pottery styles. New research, previously unavailable elsewhere, is discussed in the context of mobility and the development of social hierarchy. The sites document a trajectory that was distinct from Puerto Rico’s, although Puerto Rico was engaged through the movement of people and ideas from Hispaniola to Puerto Rico. His…

  • The Caribbean before Columbus

    William F Keegan, C L HofmanBOOKCaribbean Before Columbus2017

    "The islands of the Caribbean are remarkably diverse, environmentally and culturally. Ranging from low limestone islands to volcanic islands with mountainous peaks, from rainforests to desert habitats, they are home to a mosaic of indigenous communities and to the descendants of Europeans, Africans, and Asians. Yet this diversity has become homogenized, for both the tourist and the historian. For instance, it was assumed that every new prehistori…

  • Late Holocene Historical Ecology: The Timing of Vertebrate Extirpation on Crooked Island, Commonwealth of The Bahamas

    David W Steadman, Hayley M Singleton et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2017Cited by: 1References: 2

    We report eight new accelerator-mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon (14C) dates performed directly on individual bones of extirpated species from Crooked Island, The Bahamas. Three dates from the hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami), recovered from a culturally derived bone assemblage in McKay's Bluff Cave (site CR-5), all broadly overlap from AD 1450 to 1620, which encompasses the time of first European contact with the Lucayan on Crooked Island (AD 14…

  • The Bioarchaeology of Kinship: Proposed Revisions to Assumptions Guiding Interpretation

    Bradley E Ensor, Joel D Irish et al.ARTICLECurrent Anthropology2017Cited by: 27References: 72

    Bioarchaeology provides sophisticated techniques for estimating intra- and intercemetery biological relationships (i.e., biodistances), which can significantly expand anthropological research on kinship, explaining multiple dimensions of social life and identity in prehistory. However, some assumptions guiding the interpretation of results may need reconsideration. Although it is often assumed that descent groups should be homogeneous, social org…

  • Mobility and Disdain: Columbus and Cannibals in the Land of Cotton

    William F KeeganARTICLEEthnohistory2015Cited by: 2References: 13

    The premise of this contribution is that some of the observations regarding the indigenous peoples of the Bahama archipelago ("Lucayans") recorded in the diario of Christopher Columbus's first voyage to America provide the opportunity to infer precontact practices. Important observations in the diario for the Bahamas are descriptions of exchanges between the Lucayans and the Spanish. These descriptions indicate that cotton, parrots, and wood jave…

  • The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology

    Corinne L Hofmann, William F Keegan et al.BOOKThe Oxford handbook of Caribbean…2013

    In one sense, the Caribbean islands were isolated from their neighbors and the surrounding mainland by water, but the degree of isolation was negotiated by cultural potentials. This volume on Caribbean archaeology focuses on the cultural construction of insularity. In this regard, the Caribbean islands can shed their insular past and demonstrate their significant role for understanding world history. The articles in this volume are based on studi…

  • Sites on the landscape: Paleoenvironmental context of late Pleistocene archaeological sites from the Lake Victoria basin, equatorial East Africa

    Christian Tryon, C A Tryon et al.ARTICLEQuaternary International2013Cited by: 33References: 13

  • Indigenous Languages of the Caribbean

    Julian Granberry, Corinne Lisette Hofman et al.BOOKThe Oxford handbook of Caribbean…2013

    This title provides an overview of archaeological investigations in the insular Caribbean, understood here as the islands whose shores surround the Caribbean Sea and the islands of the Bahama Archipelago. The handbook brings together examples of the best research conducted by scholars from across the globe to address the complexity of the Caribbean past

  • From Faunal Remains to Baselines: Comment on Julio Baisre's “Setting a Baseline for Caribbean Fisheries”

    William F KeeganARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2010References: 6

  • Caciques and Cemí Idols: The Web Spun by Taíno Rulers between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico . José R. Oliver

    William F KeeganARTICLEJournal of Anthropological Research2010