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22. Anatomy of a Colony: A Ta
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22 Anatomy of a Colony A Taíno Outpost in the Turks & Caicos Islands TheTurks & Caicos Islands and Hispaniola were intimately connected during the Taíno past.This can be seen in settlements in theTurks & Caicos Islands that were occupied by people who lived most of the time in Hispaniola. Often these sites began as locations to extract economic items for use back home.They evolved into colonies as the Lucayan Islands became permanently settled. One such site was located on the western shore of North Creek at the northwest end of GrandTurk.The Coralie site (GT-3) is one of the oldest archaeological sites in the Bahama archipelago and the first settlement in the Turks & Caicos Islands. It is also the best example of an initial colony on a previously uninhabited island in all of the West Indies. The site is located within twenty meters (66 feet) of North Creek, a large inland tidal creek or bay. About three hundred meters (985 feet) to the west is a sand beach above a shallow tidal flat (less than one meter [3.3 feet] deep), which extends for about five hundred meters (1,640 feet) to the barrier reef, beyond which the sea drops to two thousand meters (6,560 feet) in theTurks Island Passage. North Wells, a source of potable water for the past three hundred years, is about half a mile south of the site. It is likely that this low-lying area in which water collects today provided a relatively permanent water supply for the original inhabitants . The site is located where the residents could easily access prey in multiple habitats, such as North Creek, the ocean off the leeward side of the island, and on land. At this time in Grand Turk’s history the terrestrial animals were large and plentiful. The shore of North Creek is lined with red mangroves and sea purslane; the 122 / Chapter 22 ocean shore is predominantly sea grapes; and dense acacia thorn brush and cacti, especially the prickly pear cactus, cover the dune itself. The current conditions, both botanically and zoologically, are a poor reflection of the past environment. Dr. Lee Newsom’s study of wood charcoal from the site has revealed several trees that are today rare or absent from GrandTurk.These include wild lime, ironwood, Celastraceae (bittersweet family), and palm trunk wood. Buttonwood, which today grows along the margin of North Creek, was also present in charcoal samples. Moreover, clear growth rings of varying width and morphology are visible in charred wood samples, reflecting an annual rainfall regime of alternating wet and dry seasons. The Coralie site was discovered in 1992 when prehistoric potsherds were exposed on the ground surface by land clearance for a housing development. To define its boundaries, a grid of shovel tests was laid over the site. These tests revealed a high incidence of sea turtle and other animal bones, pottery, and mollusk shells in low frequency distributed over a 40-by-150-meter (130 by 500 feet) area covering more than two acres. The archaeological deposits have been protected by burial under 30 to 60 centimeters (1–2 feet) of soil. Although we obtained one relatively early radiocarbon date (AD 900) from charcoal recovered in a test pit, it was only after we began to open larger areas of the site that we realized that this was a colony dat37 . Archaeological excavations at the Coralie site in 1996, Grand Turk. Photo by Lisabeth A. Carlson. [18.222.184.162] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:54 GMT) Anatomy of a Colony / 123 ing to the initial human colonization of the Lucayan Islands. Between 1995 and 1997, more than 250 square meters (2,700 square feet) were excavated in mostly contiguous units. Ten radiocarbon dates indicate that the site was occupied from about 1200 to 800 years ago (AD 705 to 1170). The people who occupied this site were the direct ancestors of the Taínos. No skeletal remains have yet been found of the people themselves. What remains here is only what the people brought with them from Hispaniola, along with the bones of animals they butchered along this shoreline. Several pieces of polished greenstone , which had flaked off of celts or axes, and a nearly complete greenstone axe provide evidence that these were the first people to clear land on GrandTurk, probably for small gardens in which manioc, sweet potatoes, cotton, and other crops were grown. We also recovered a variety of conch...