Times of the Islands Summer 2019

astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
Evidence of prehistoric human occupation of the area
around Juba Point was first reported by Theodoor De Booy
in the early 1900s. He was exploring the Islands on behalf
of the Heye Museum of the American Indian in New York
when he found pre-Columbian ceramics and stone artifacts
in caves above the sound behind Long Bay.
Exploring the area downhill from the caves in 1976,
archaeologist Shaun Sullivan came upon Amerindian
ceramics and shell food remains in a grassy area alongside
the original channel for the Caicos Marina, and followed
up with text excavation there in early 1977.
The site was originally recorded as Providenciales–1,
and has come to be renamed the South Bank site.
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from a firepit encountered
in 1977 provided a calibrated date of AD 1328 +/– 49
years. Imported ceramics encountered indicated contact
with the Amerindians in the Greater Antilles. Locally
made ceramics, Palmetto Ware, were common, classifying
this as a local settled culture, i.e., a Lucayan village site.
Bone remains analyzed at the Florida Museum of Natural
History demonstrated exploitation of fish from the estuary
and near shore environments.
More than 40 years later in the spring of 2018, Sullivan
and Beluga catamaran captain Tim Ainley returned to
the site and found it remarkably undisturbed, in spite
of intervening development surrounding it. A local resident,
Kathi Barrington, wandered by with her dog, and
advised that the site was soon to be converted to housing
and a marina. Concerned by the pending loss of cultural
remains, the developers were contacted.
Coming to appreciate the value of the site, Windward
Long Bay Development Ltd., via Ingo Reckhorn, generously
agreed to fund the bulk of the cost excavations
and analysis to capture key information about the ancient
culture while there was still time. Additional funding and
support came from the Turks & Caicos Reef Fund, the
Anthropological Research Council and Sail Beluga.
A rapid effort was made to inform the local community
of the site’s value and recruit participants in the
rescue archaeology effort. We teamed up with Michael
Pateman and Candianne Williams of the Turks & Caicos
National Museum and reached out to Ethlyn Gibbs of the
Turks & Caicos National Trust; Ludmila Fulford of the TCI
Department of Education; Nicole Caesar, Lormeka Williams
and Eric Salamanca of the TCI Department of Environment
and Coastal Resources, Agile LeVin of Visit TCI and Sylvia
Part of each day’s work by students and volunteers at the South Bank
site included screening excavated soil to uncover artifacts.
Wigglesworth of the BWI Collegiate.
In early October, with a community outreach response
of a dozen local adult residents and several bright and
energetic students from the Collegiate, we launched our
effort to capture the information locked in the earth. We
began each day gathered around our artifact-sorting tables
in the shade of a high canopy to discuss the practical
tasks ahead for that day, as well as the broader theories
surrounding what we were doing. We discussed the prehistory
of the Islands; Lucayan and Taino Indian cultures;
ancient human migrations; anthropology; archaeology;
and the roles of museums and of public participation in
research to assist in creating a sense of cultural continuity
with the past. There were a lot of questions, and the lively
discussions that ensued helped give meaning to our findings
during the excavations.
The youngsters who participated enlivened the
enterprise considerably. They were enthusiastic and
good-natured. They kibitzed and sang while they worked.
We hosted field trips to the archaeological site for more
than half a dozen local elementary and secondary schools,
representatives of the press, local officials and Governor
Freeman. The visiting students were curious and asked
Times of the Islands Summer 2019 67