Scientists have unearthed bones of five non-native species of animals on a tiny Caribbean island which they say are more than 600 years old and present a puzzle about the people who lived in the region long before Christopher Columbus arrived. The remains discovered from two ancient villages on the island of Carriacou included those of opossums,armadillos,guinea pigs,rabbit-sized rodents called agoutis,as well as nocturnal,piglike peccaries. Because the animals seem scarce,it's unlikely they were daily meals for the inhabitants there,the researchers said. This suggest that all of these animals would have had to be transported to the West Indies and may have been used in ritual events or as foods by people of high status,they said. "We suspect that they may have been foods eaten by people of high status,or used in ritual events," study author Scott Fitzpatrick,an anthropology professor at North Carolina State University,was quoted as saying by LiveScience. By looking at the radioactive decay of carbon atoms in the samples,a technique called carbon dating,the researchers determined that the animals had been introduced to the island between the years 700 and 1400. Christopher Columbus became the first European in the West Indies in 1492,when he arrived at an island he called San Salvador. Humans began showing up in West Indies around 5000 BC,when people from South America arrived on Trinidad. The Lesser Antilles,the group of islands that includes Carriacou,became inhabited around 2500 BC to 3000 BC. Since all five of the uncovered species lack the ability to swim or float from the mainland,human settlers must have brought them along,the researchers reported in the Journal of Biogeography. Supporting that idea,the dates of the remains match up with the dates associated with other materials found at the two ancient villages,they said.
