Replication Data for "ZooMS reveals past sea turtle zooarchaeological presence in Curaçao and Bonaire for reconstructions of long-term turtle-human interactions in the Caribbean"

Previously, sea turtle bones’ high fragmentation rates limited traditional morphological identifications beyond the family level, hindering assessment of species-specific human-turtle interactions. While poor organic preservation once deterred the application of biomolecular research in the Caribbean, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) has demonstrated the ability to retrieve proteins from archaeological sea turtles deposited in tropical, subtropical, and arid environments.

We applied ZooMS to 87 non-diagnostic archaeological sea turtle remains from the arid, tropical Caribbean islands of Curaçao and Bonaire to reconstruct past sea turtle abundances. Our results provide long-term evidence for human interactions with green (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) turtles. Comparison with ZooMS results from the circum-Caribbean demonstrate consistently high identification rates for green turtles and negative evidence for leatherbacks, while also revealing intra-regional differences in the frequency of loggerhead and hawksbill turtles recorded.