By Lisa Davis-Burnett
PHILIPSBURG--Anguilla opened her bank vaults on Saturday and brought out rarely-seen artifacts from the pre-Columbian era for the delegates for the 26th congress of International Association for Caribbean Archaeology (IACA). With armed police dutifully standing next to the displays, the honoured guests snapped photos, gazed in awe and offering hushed comments to each other.
"This piece is iconic, I've studied about it for years and to see it in person up close is amazing," said one archaeologist, looking at the carved shell "mask" found in the Sandy Hill region of Anguilla. The artifacts are considered among the most precious items on the island and are kept in the bank vault to insure their safety.
Items from antiquity are found by archaeologists and carefully catalogued, keeping data on its location, depth and relationship to other found items. The process is painstaking and slow, but occasionally even locals and tourists come across a piece of colonial dishware, a sherd of Taino pottery or an ancient bone fragment.
Legally, any artifacts recovered must be turned over to the authorities to be preserved for the cultural heritage of the residents of the island. Chemical and other analyses can be performed on artifacts without destroying them, and these tests may reveal how old the items are, or even where they came from.
For instance, the carved stone figures known as zemís have been found in abundance in Anguilla, but the archaeologists know that the stone they are made from was mined in the hills of St. Martin. The ancient people likely canoed throughout the region, from island to island, trading materials and establishing camps for gathering materials or for fishing/hunting.
The green stone favoured for the making of zemís, represents how much value and effort was given to this revered creation. Zemís represent gods or ancestral spirits and often have a triangular or mountain-peak shape.
The delegates for the 26th congress of International Association for Caribbean Archaeology (IACA) experienced a week full of such honours. The governments of St. Maarten, St. Martin and Anguilla went to extreme lengths to show the scientists how welcome they were.
During weekdays, Sonesta Maho Resort conference rooms housed technical sessions from 8:00am until almost 6:00pm. One hundred and fifteen papers were presented and discussed during this time.
On Tuesday evening, the delegates were treated to archaeological displays and a cocktail party at the Territorial Archives Building in Marigot. Wednesday afternoon, a field trip was organized to show off some of the archaeological sites of the Friendly Island. This was guided by Dr. Dominique Bonnissent of the Regional Archaeology Service of the Cultural Affairs Dept. in Guadeloupe.
Friday evening, Great Bay Beach Promenade was the venue as poets, mokojumbies and energetic young dancers from Funtopia, along with an army of tireless and talented young drummers from New Generation Status Band wowed the crowd, followed by champagne and snacks in private party tents erected on Captain Hodge Wharf.
Saturday's field trip to Anguilla capped off this exciting week. Stops included overviews of Rendezvous Bay and Road Bay, followed by a visit to Anguilla Heritage Collection, a privately-owned museum located in the Valley. This small museum is a tribute to the island of Anguilla – its history and prehistory, as well as natural history.
The most memorable stop for most of the delegates was at the blessing of the new National Park of Anguilla, known as Fountain Cavern. This site has been known to the residents of Anguilla for generations and has been studied for decades by some of the congress delegates, notably Dr. David R. Watters of Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Dr. John Crock of University of Vermont.
Inside the cavern, now protected by a locked gate, are abundant petrogyphs carved into the stone walls, as well as into the stalagmites and stalactites. Dr. Crock's work here is ongoing; in fact, he presented a paper on Monday about his team's work to document and preserves the images in this cave using 3-D modelling.
This new National Park will offer tourists and locals a chance to learn about the culture and people that inhabited our islands before the first contact with Europeans in the late 15th and early16th centuries. Not quite ready for the public yet, the park will house an information centre, a nature walk to the cavern entrance and signage explaining the archaeology and anthropology of the site.
As a part of this "soft opening", the IACA delegates were allowed to witness the park's blessing by Mabrika, the counsellor of the Kalinago Tribe from Dominica. Mabrika, who is also known as Gerard Langlais, collected local herbs to create a cleansing bath for the park; he sang to the ancestors and swirled a gourd rattle.
When asked what he was singing, he said, "I am calling the spirits of the forefathers, saying we are here in peace and we are here to help them."
Organizer of the event, St. Maarten's own archaeologist Dr. Jay Haviser, thanked his committee of helpers: Elsje Bosch, Amanda Ferrier, Chris Velasquez, Glenderlin Holiday, and Paul Ellinger, who were all instrumental in pulling off this important conference.
Haviser also thanked the St. Maarten Harbour Group of Companies, Government of St. Maarten, Leiden University, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Sonesta Maho, Anguilla Tourist Bureau, Collectivité de Saint-Martin, Conseil Régional de Guadeloupe, The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and Republique Francais Ministry of Culture Communication.
