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A recent archaeological expedition on Grand Turk led by Dr. William F. Keegan an Associate Curator of Anthropology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Centre for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, in conjunction with EarthCorps volunteers, made some extremely exciting discoveries.
The expedition, one of many over the last few years was intended to research the Tainos people and culture. The first evidence of this groups existence occurred in approximately 1492, when Columbus on his arrival in the West Indies found the Bahamas Islands occupied. The social organisation of the Tainos was fairly structured and quite complex, they were however primarily a horticultural dependant people organised under a central chief. It is apparent that their occupation of these Islands at that time was part of an increasingly southern migration from the Greater Antilles. One of their major food sources as a supplement to their farming crops in the Islands was the abundant sea turtles, they also made extensive use of the colourful sea shells for decoration. The Tainos also seemed to have profited from the trade in cotton, feathers, and salt.
Unfortunately as with many other cultures the arrival of the ‘civilised world’ did little to enhance the lives of these people. In fact, within approximately 25 years, over two million Tainos had ceased to exist either through disease, slavery, or violence.
The EarthCorps volunteers that worked on Grand Turk spent their time trying to rediscover traces of this almost forgotten early-American culture which fortunately, because they made their existance by farming and fishing, the Tainos left behind ample evidence of their existence. As a part of the archaeological excavations, in January 1995 the volunteers discovered the bones of three gopher tortoises, previously thought to have been extinct in the West Indies for more than 10,000 years. The volunteers also discovered through excavation abandoned pottery and cooking sites.
Many other researchers in this field of study have stated that the Turks and Caicos Islands were too dry for inhabitancy, the studies of Dr. William Keegan and the EarthCorps volunteers however has shown that this is apparently incorrect. They found several abandoned sites at this southernmost stretch of the Bahamian chain and in 1995 the EarthCorps volunteers found evidence that the Tainos had in fact established a settlement on Grand Turk as long ago as 1,300 years. The site that has been discovered and partially excavated on the spit of land between the west coast and the large inland lagoon, incongruously called ‘North Creek’ have shown revealed that it is probably the only undisturbed site of its kind in the West Indies. It has also contributed towards disproving many theories as with every careful dig, new and revealing data about how these people lived is being ‘unearthed’.