ANCIENT BOWLS FOUND

Two clay bowls estimated to be over one thousand years old have been found at the site of an Amerindian settlement at Woodford Hill beach in the north of the island.

The indigenous village dates from before the time of the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The bowls were found by Andre Samuel, one of the Youth Environment Service Corps (YES Corps) students, who was doing archaeological field work under the direction of UWI Staff Tutor, Dr. Lennox Honychurch.

The YES Corps is a training programme of the Youth Development Division of the Ministry of Education Sports and Youth Affairs. The facilitator of the YES Corps, Terry Raymond, aims at giving the participants of the programme hands-on experience of various aspects of Dominican culture, civics and environmental issues. Part of this experience involves fieldwork on Dominican heritage with Dr.Honychurch in various parts of the island. It was during a session on understanding archaeology that the bowls were found.

Dr. Honychurch had been exploring the site at Woodford Hill for some years and has found several pieces of pottery, stone and shell in the past, but this is the first time that whole pots have been uncovered. A French archaeologist, Dr. Henri Petitjean Roger, has dated the site to about 600 AD, similar to sites directly across the channel on Mariegalante.

The assistance of the YES Corps has helped to discover much more about the way that the indigenous people lived at Woodford Hill many hundreds of years ago.

By piecing together all of the materials which have been found, the students, under Dr. Honychurch's direction have been able to recreate a picture of what life was like in Wai'tukubuli at that time.

It appears that there was a thriving village of the so-called Arawak people who farmed the area, made cassava, ate shellfish, decorated their pottery and had close connections by canoe with Mariegalante.

The bowls were found on government land at Woodford Hill and as historic objects they fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and the Public Library. They will soon be mounted on display at The Dominica Museum on Dame Eugenia Charles Boulevard.

 

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