The Soldier Ghaut Petroglyphs on Montserrat, Lesser Antilles

Abstract

Only five years ago, Montserrat was a blank spot on the distribution map of islands in the Lesser Antilles where petroglyphs were known. In January 2016, hikers in Soldier Ghaut, a deeply incised watercourse in the northwest of the island, came upon a panel of nine petroglyphs engraved on a nearly vertical wall of volcanoclastic tuff. Soon afterward the petroglyphs were documented by the Survey and Landscape Archaeology on Montserrat project (SLAM). Then in January 2018 an additional petroglyph was spotted on a large slab of rock, detached from the rock wall on the opposite side of the ghaut. At the invitation of the Montserrat National Trust (MNT) and with European Union funding, Susana Guimarães and Christian Stouvenot traveled to Montserrat in 2018 to assist in further studies at the site. They conducted photogrammetric documentation and photography under enhanced lighting conditions and inspected the petroglyphs and their context in detail in order to advise MNT about their conservation and provisions for public access. This report presents this new group of petroglyphs and their landscape setting and considers questions of dating and interpretation.