Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Lo­cal his­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh is call­ing on the Na­tion­al Trust to take charge of a mid­den in Val­sayn where three Amerindi­an arte­facts dat­ing to 2000 BC, were dis­cov­ered by a land own­er on Sun­day.

The an­i­mal-shaped fig­urines were post­ed on Face­book by Melis­sa Ja­groop-Topha.

Bisses­sars­ingh said it ap­peared the ar­ti­facts were from the Pari­co tribe, from which Pi­ar­co got its name.

"To find it that far un­der a swamp is un­usu­al. I was in­formed that the three pieces of pot­tery were found three feet in a piece of la­goon in St Au­gus­tine south of UWI. It is marsh­lands and it would be un­usu­al for them to set­tle there. They might have lived there for a short time," Bisses­sars­ingh said.

Clas­si­fy­ing the fig­urines as Sal­adoid pot­tery be­cause of the de­sign and shape, Bisses­sars­ingh said the Sal­adoids lived near streams, rivers and coast­lines.

"To find three pieces of pot­tery in one spot is pret­ty strange es­pe­cial­ly since they are of one type. Bisses­sars­ingh called on the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Ar­chae­ol­o­gy Unit led by Dr Basil Reid and the Na­tion­al Trust led by Michelle Soles­tine to in­ves­ti­gate the find­ings.

"Of­fi­cials at UWI should look in­to it to see if any oth­er pot­tery can be found. Too of­ten these sites get looked over and then we hear the un­for­tu­nate news that the arte­facts have start­ed dis­ap­pear­ing. Sal­adoid pot­tery and usu­al­ly starts around 2,000 BC and ends 13,000 BC," Bisses­sars­ingh said.

Asked whether the Na­tion­al Trust had the au­thor­i­ty to take charge of the site, Bisses­sars­ingh said the Trust was the cu­ra­tor of T&T's na­tion­al her­itage but de­spite the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion, there was no en­force­ment body to ex­e­cute the ex­ist­ing laws.

Prais­ing Ja­groop-Topha for deal­ing sen­si­bly with the mat­ter, Bisses­sars­ingh said the three arte­facts should be care­ful­ly safe-guard­ed and lodged at the Ar­chae­ol­o­gy Cen­tre of UWI.

Se­nior lec­tur­er in his­to­ry, at the Col­lege of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T, Dr Rad­i­ca Ma­hase al­so called on the pub­lic to re­spect the her­itage site.

"I think once there are any sites where his­tor­i­cal arte­facts are found, some mea­sures must be put in place to pre­serve them un­til work could be done on the site. The Ar­chae­ol­o­gy Unit at UWI led by Dr Reid and the Na­tion­al Trust of T&T should work to­geth­er. Dr Reid, who is the ex­pert on these mat­ters can give us an idea of what time pe­ri­od the ar­ti­facts are found and ad­vise fur­ther," Dr Ma­hase said.

Emails sent to Soles­tine and Reid were not an­swered.