The Submerged Pre‐Columbian Site of Fond Banane (Martinique, French West Indies): Insights Into Late Holocene Coastal Dynamics and Human–Environment Interactions on the Edge of the Mangroves

ABSTRACT Late Holocene coastal dynamics in the Lesser Antilles remain poorly documented at the site scale, obscuring links between shoreline change and pre‐Columbian settlements. We integrate hyperbaric coring, RTK‐DGNSS mapping, granulometry, FTIR, portable‐XRF, biosedimentological analysis, and AMS 14 C dates to reconstruct the palaeoshoreline history of the submerged pre‐Columbian site of Fond Banane, Martinique. Sedimentary archives record a stable vegetated barrier (Unit IV, 1191 BC – AD 991) bearing artifacts dated AD 654–775 (Middle Ceramic period), overlain by mangrove peat (Unit III, AD 991–1154), reworked continental/marine facies (Unit II), and the modern infratidal pocket beach (Unit I). The cultural layer now lies 3.14 m below present sea level, 2.7–3.1 m deeper than regional relative‐sea‐level models, implying ≈ 2.3–3.3 mm year⁻¹ tectono‐volcanic subsidence over the last millennium. Elemental and sedimentological analysis document episodic contemporaneous high‐energy events that accelerated erosion and artifact dispersal. The resulting micro‐regional late‐Holocene RSL curve quantifies geodynamic forcing that could have submerged other Caribbean coastal settlements and underscores the growing vulnerability of underwater heritage to combined subsidence and relative sea‐level rise in the context of globally accelerating ocean levels. Our multi‐proxy workflow provides a transferable template for reassessing insular occupation models across the tropics in the context of marine transgression.