By SEETA PERSAD Thursday, March 29 2007

BLANCHISSEUSE is generally considered to be the largest pre-Columbian site in North Trinidad. Radiocarbon dates of the sites indicate that Amerindians inhabited Blanchisseuse 1,800 to 1,400 years ago.

These were the findings of the UWI archaeology crew headed by Dr Basil Reid, lecturer in Archaeology in the Department of History.

On March 7, Reid and his team conducted archaeological excavations at Marianne Estate in Blanchisseuse.

“Pottery found at the site is characterised by white-on-red, red and black painting, which are the signature pottery decorations of the Saladoid people. The Saladoids, the first pottery-making Amerindians to arrive in Trinidad and Tobago, settled the twin island republic from 250 BC to AD 600,” Reid told students. Reid said the Saladoids migrated from the Orinoco region of Venezuela, as farmers, potters and villagers.

“A Saladoid village usually had a central plaza, which was the scene of meetings and ritual activities, including cohaba rituals. Saladoid men would inhale hallucinogens as part of their ritual displays,” he said.

Previous archaeological surveys conducted in Blanchisseuse during the late 1990s suggest the areas where sparse quantities of pottery were found might have been the site of a central plaza, while areas with the heavier quantities of pottery might have been the residential areas of Blanchisseuse.

This year’s excavation focused on a two-metre by two-metre excavation unit, which yielded an assortment of pottery, griddles and stone artefacts. The Saladoid pots were used for a variety of functions such as cooking, food storage and ceremonial feasting.

The griddles tend to be thicker and poorly fired and were used for baking cassava bread, a staple of the Amerindians in north-east South America and the Caribbean. An interesting find this year is a stone artefact that seems to have been a vomit spatula.

The stone is polished and this could be interpreted as evidence of human manipulation. Reid consulted Dr Brent Wilson, a lecturer in Geoscience in UWI’s Department of Chemical Engineering to identify the geological make-up of the stone. Wilson described the object as made of fine-grained, acid, extrusive igneous rock from a volcano.

He also said there is no such rock found in Trinidad and the stone was probably imported from the Lesser Antilles.

As a result, Reid believes the stone may be a vomit spatula, imported by the Saladoid inhabitants of Blanchisseuse and used in their cohaba rituals in the central plaza. The importation of precious stones, called lapidary trade, is one of the defining characteristics of Saladoid culture throughout the Caribbean.

Students Naresh Ramsamooj, Fayola St Bernard, Ziggy Foster, Candice McDonald, Renisha Hutchinson, Onika Mandela, Farzaana Khan, Dahlia James-Williams and Rosemonde Montano, took part in the Blanchisseuse project.

Naseema Hosein, research assistant at the Archaeology Centre in UWI’s Department of History, St Augustine, also assisted with the project.