An Archaeological Mystery?

Dr. David Pendergast, New World Archaeology
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

After almost thirty-four years in Belize, the idea that I would add another country to my list of interests seems ludicrous in the extreme. Can you feign surprise, therefore, on learning that during a journey to Cuba as part of a scientific delegation I found an archaeological site (and Cuban archaeologists) so overwhelmingly interesting that I am about to plunge - almost literally, in fact - into Cuba's past?

For those who love a mystery, there is a feast for thought at Los Buchillones. Beneath the lagoon's shallow waters lies fango, or mire, which in this case is so laden with sulpher and other chemicals that it will turn a silver ring bluish-green in a few moments. Perhaps it is the chemical bath, or perhaps the thick bottom clay itself, that has offered protection for artifacts that should have succumbed to the forces of decay several centuries ago. Out of the muck have come fragments and nearly whole specimens of beautiful shallow oval wooden bowls or trays, often with decorated handles at their ends; portios of duhos(complex ceremonial stools that served as badges of rank of office); handles that once held "petaloid" stone axes; carved and plain pins, including one that looks like a brand -new fid (of course we all know that a fid is a rope working tool); a hook so like modern ones used for suspending things from rafters that one can hardly doubt its ancient use; and, perhaps most striking of all, a wonderful variety of figurines that once boasted shell-inlaid eyes, mouths, and other features. Here is the richness of which tropical archaeological sites have been robbed; here, in some ways at least, is an open window on an almost unknown aspect of the Antillean past. But how did such remarkable richness come to lie buried at the bottom of a lagoon?

The work aimed at addressing this mystery is just beginning. (for suggestions and further discussion, please see the Royal Ontario Museum Archaelogical Newsletter from which this short note is taken)