Caribbean Archaeozoology
International audience ; The current archaeozoological knowledge in the Caribbean seems ill-matched and fragmented, we should set the Caribbean archaeological research in its historical, epistemological and economical context. Initially practiced by naturalists and scientists from Occident, then by Caribbean, north-American and Europeans academics, this research reflects in one hand the major occidental thoughts in anthropology and human sciences, but on the other hand the political and economical regional diversity of the Caribbean. Indeed, since the beginning of the XX th century, the Europe an excitement about the Tainos of the Greater Antilles allowed both academic (governement and university) and rescue archaeology in the whole Caribbean. It is based on survey and excavation techniques adapted to the tropical environments, as well as on specialized studies, such as Archaeozoology, following European practices. Moreover, an increasing number of excavations occurred in the Caribbean for the past decades. Regional Museums have opened, and European and North American universities and academic institutions have settled in several islands. Researches have developed on subsistence, on environmental exploitation, on technology, on villages organization, on exchanges and chronocultural shifts. Finally, a number of archaeozoological researchers provided micro-regional and regional synthesis for the Caribbean. This paper introduces the particular geography of the Caribbean, a brief history of the pre-Columbian archaeology and archaeozoological researches in the Caribbean, and the major cultural pre-Columbian changes found through Archaeozoology.