Excavations at Los Buchillones, Cuba

Abstract

Between 1989 and 1994, north coast fishermen Nelson Torna and Pedro Guerra salvaged approximately 195 well-preserved wooden artefacts, mostly of lignum vitcre, from recently disturbed marine sediments near their village of Punta Alegre, in Ciego de Avila, Cuba. They had collected the artefacts from a shallow lagoon, and from the shoreline near their village at a place known as Los Buchillones. The wooden artefacts include pins, eyed needles, hooks, fragments of dishes, handles for axes (including two that retained the stone tools), duhos or stools that served as badges of rank in Taino society, and zemis or male deity figures. In 1994, on an official Royal Ontario Museum visit to Cuba, then curator David Pendergast was shown these artefacts, and discussions began between Pendergast and Cuban archaeologists Dr Jorge Calvera and Lic. Juan Jardines concerning the possibility of launching an investigation of the contexts from which the artifacts had come. The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) thereby established a jointly directed and jointly funded project with the Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia, y Medio Ambiente (CITMA) of the government of Cuba, and investigations began in 1997