Manataka American Indian Council®
Puerto Rico archeological find mired in politics
SAN JUAN -- The lady carved on the ancient rock is squatting,
with frog-like legs sticking out to each side. Her decapitated head is dangling
to the right.
That's how she had been, perfectly preserved, for up to 800 years, until the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers came upon her last year while building a $375
million dam to control flooding in southern Puerto Rico.
She was buried again last week with the hope that some day specialists will
study her and Puerto Rican children will visit and learn about the lives of the
Taino Indians who created her. But archaeologists and government officials first
had to settle a raging debate about who should have control over her and other
artifacts sent to Georgia for analysis.
The ancient petroglyph of the woman was found on a five-acre site in Jácana, a
spot along the Portugues River in the city of Ponce, on Puerto Rico's southern
coast. Among the largest and most significant ever unearthed in the Caribbean,
archaeologists said, the site includes plazas used for ceremony or sport, a
burial ground, residences and a midden mound -- a pile of ritual trash.
The finding sheds new light on the lifestyle and activities of a people extinct
for nearly 500 years.
Experts say the site -- parts of it unearthed from six feet of soil -- had been
used at least twice, the first time by pre-Taino peoples as far back as 600 AD,
then again by the Tainos sometime between 1200 and 1500 AD.
''It was thrilling, a once-in-a-lifetime thing,'' said David McCullough, an Army
Corps archaeologist. ``Just amazing.''
But like all things on this politically charged island, the discovery got caught
up in a sovereignty debate: If an archaeological site rich in historic and
cultural value is discovered in a federal construction site in Puerto Rico, a
commonwealth of the United States, who should be in charge of it?
After months of finger-pointing and accusations of officially sanctioned
plundering, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers poured $2 million into preserving
the site. Plans to put a rock dump over it were changed, and the unearthed
discovery was reburied with the aspiration that archaeologists will eventually
return to dedicate the 10 or 20 years needed to thoroughly study the finding.
The
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers promises the collection sent to Georgia will be
returned to Puerto Rico. Some 75 boxes of skeletons, ceramics, small petroglyphs
and rocks were sent via Federal Express in two double-boxed shipments for
analysis.
''The site is a significant contribution to our understanding of what Indians
were doing,'' McCullough said. ``The thing that makes it unique is that the
petroglyphs are so finely done. We originally were supposed to be there six
weeks. It wound up taking four months.''
McCullough said the corps had an inkling that the site was there since the mid
1980s but had never done much testing. They started digging in earnest last year
while building a dam and lake to protect the region from floods, and realized
the site had significant value.
The corps found a ball court with four walls lined by tall stones, where they
believe the Tainos either danced or played games. Three were covered in
petroglyphs, among the best experts had ever seen. Some of the figures were
carved upside down, which none of the archaeologists had ever seen before.
Discoveries included a jade-colored amulet and the remains of a guinea pig,
likely the feast of a tribal chief.
''The size of the ball court is bigger than just about anything else in the
Caribbean,'' McCullough said.
Archaeologists believe as many as 400 people are buried there.
But in its quest to build the dam and use the location as a dumping ground for
rocks, critics say the corps quickly hired a private archaeological firm to
mitigate -- a hurried process of saving what can be conserved so a project can
go forward. The company sent 125 cubic feet of artifacts in two shipments to its
facility in Georgia for analysis, a move allegedly made without consulting
Puerto Rican authorities, which locals felt violated the law.
But the question became: Whose law applied? U.S. law says such artifacts found
by the corps must be warehoused in a federally approved curating facility. No
such place exists in Puerto Rico. And Puerto Rican law says historical artifacts
belong to the people of Puerto Rico.
''In Puerto Rico, everything that has to do with our past is sentimental, and
Puerto Ricans take it to heart,'' said Marisol Rodríguez, an archaeologist at
the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. ``There's a feeling that you're taking
something that's mine. It's about our national identity, regardless of the
island's political status.''
Rodríguez is pleased that the site has been preserved but acknowledges she was
furious at how it was originally excavated with heavy machinery.
''I was so angry. I was indignant,'' she said. ``I could not believe that a
place of such importance was being treated with such disrespect.'
New South Associates, the firm hired to do the digging, says it excavated about
5 percent of the site for study.
''It was in the newspaper that we raped and pillaged the site, because it all
got caught up in local politics,'' said archaeologist Chris Espenshade, New
South's lead investigator on the project. ``We are required to take the
artifacts to a federally approved curating facility. That played into the idea
that we were stealing Puerto Rican cultural patrimony away and never bringing it
back. There's no question these things should be available for Puerto Rican
scholars without them having to travel to go see it.
``It's a bad situation.''
What's left of the site will remain beside a five-year dam construction project,
which will continue as planned. It may be vulnerable to floods, archaeologists
acknowledged, but they note that it lasted that way underground for hundreds of
years.
''It's not the best way to preserve it, but it's better than the alternative: to
destroy it,'' Espenshade said. ``The Corps could have destroyed it, but they
took the highly unusual step to preserve it.''
Puerto Rican authorities say they are committed to opening a facility needed to
properly store and exhibit the artifacts.
The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture is scouting locations and trying to secure
the approximately $570,000 a year needed to operate such a warehouse. Officials
hope it will open as early as mid-2009, but some experts still worry.
''Nobody could believe that in the 21st century, a federal agency would hire a
private agency to dig up a site and take things,'' said Miguel Rodríguez, an
archaeologist who sat on Puerto Rico's government archaeological council for a
total of eight years.
He quit in January following a heart attack, which he blamed on stress over the
Jácana site.
''Those are the things that happened in the 18th and 19th century, not now,''
Rodríguez said. ``Nobody dares go to Mexico, do an excavation and just take the
stuff. That's officially sanctioned looting.''
While officials debate where they will find the funds for a museum, storage
facility and lab, the Department of Natural Resources has hired 24-hour security
to watch over the archaeological site, just to be sure no artifacts wind up for
sale on the Internet.
''With the artifacts in Georgia,'' Department of Natural Resources Secretary
Javier Vélez said, ``at least they are not on eBay.''
~Source: Miami Herald