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| University of Cambridge > Department of Archaeology > Projects |
Mary Hill Harris: Pottery from Heywoods, Barbados |
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| The Barbados Archaeological Survey was established in 1984 as a joint project between the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and the Barbados Museum, and is directed by Peter Drewett, now Professor at the University of Sussex. Survey work has located 80 Precolumbian sites. The main aim of this long-term project is to examine how distribution of settlements and land use changed over time (from ca. 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1400) and how habitation sites articulated with each other. Research has concentrated on three main coastal areas: central southern Barbados from Maxwell to Chancery Lane; the east coast promontory at Hillcrest, Bathsheba; and the west-coast site of Heywoods. | |||||
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The site is unique on Barbados for its evidence of preceramic activity, for producing the first worked wood (preserved underwater) found on the island, and for the largest single concentration of pottery-lined wells reported in the Southern Hemisphere. |
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| Mary Hill Harris has been the
main pottery analyst for the Barbados Archaeological Survey
since its inception, and spent field seasons between 1997 and
2002 working on the Heywoods finds. Previous excavations
there (in 1986 and 1991) had revealed mostly Troumassoid or
Suazoid material with a couple of areas of Saladoid pottery
in marsh deposits (and some preceramic shell tools). During
construction work for the marina, local archaeologists
walking the area discovered many stacks of large, bottomless
prehistoric pots. Ronald Hinds and others recovered many of
the stacks originally exposed, and then construction was
halted long enough for Maureen Bennell to carry out two
excavations during the summer of 1996. The marina bulldozers
and later excavations exposed at least 30 pot stacks, which
have been interpreted as beach wells. Such wells are based on
the fact that lighter fresh water lies over heavier salt
water near the coast of a hilly island, so that fresh water
can be found by digging a shallow pit in the sand. Similar
wells have been reported elsewhere in the Caribbean on the
islands of Mustique and Carriacou. To stop the wells collapsing, the walls were lined with bottomless, large (~36-46 cm diameter) mostly undecorated bell-shaped vessels. Sometimes the top of the stack was made of a vividly decorated biconical pot rest. Packing material between the pots was composed of other sherds from vessels, griddles (all but one of the earlier flat, rather than the later footed, type), and pot rests. Maureen Bennell's excavations uncovered features such as fire pits, postholes, and burials, which also contained smaller amounts of pottery including less common forms such as incense burners and a unique footed support ring. Analysis of the pottery from the 1996 excavations showed that most of the pot stacks were of a similar date, terminal Saladoid, shown by forms, rim shapes and painted white-on-red decoration. However carbon dates for the stacks, ranging from 620 AD to 895 AD, are a little later than one would expect from the pottery. Some of the features, and two water holes lined with wood rather than pottery, had pottery of a later type. One wood-lined water hole is dated at 695 AD to 975 AD. One carbon date is significantly earlier than the rest, a tooth date from for a burial. Its date is 210-420 AD. The body appears to have been placed on top of an unusually decorated pot, and covered with pieces of other pots similar to those in other stacks. The excavator, Maureen Bennell, hypothesizes that the placement of the burial, ensuring that that well could not be used again, may have been a sign of respect. If this carbon date is correct it implies that the building of pot-lined wells continued for many centuries. |
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| The 1998-1999 excavations by Drewett and his team showed numerous features either side of a storm beach. West of the storm beach (nearest the sea) pottery was all late, Troumassoid-Suazoid, while east of it, there were three earlier house structures and several pottery wells presumably connected with these, with terminal Saladoid to early Troumassoid pottery. The most inland of the houses is dated 670-965, the central one 785-1010 and the most seaward 885-1055 (with 1085-1150 for an inner post). Surprisingly, the highest concentration of (later) Troumassoid material is in the earliest, most inland house. |  Heywoods house 3 |
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There were smaller excavations at the site in 1995 and in 1997. The 1995 excavations, towards the north of the site, showed some development from Saladoid in their lowest layers through to Suazoid in the topmost layer. In 1997, excavations were made in two southern areas, four small trenches near the sea and a larger square area near the southeastern border of the site. In this latter, most of the material came from surface collection and was Saladoid; this fits in with the findings in our 1991 excavation where the southeastern marsh area had the earliest material. The 1997 trenches near the sea had much later material, almost all of the thick, plain Suazoid type which had appeared in our excavations nearby in 1986. Heywoods continued to be occupied for a very long time, from the preceramic through till historic times. Apart from the preceramic occupation in the northern part of the site, occupation seems to have been earliest in the southeast corner and to have moved outwards toward the present beach edge, presumably as a result of landscape changes. The pottery-lined wells seem to have continued to be dug over a period of several centuries, but the majority contain terminal Saladoid pottery, and the carbon dates imply that Saladoid pottery may have lasted longer in Barbados than in other Caribbean islands. |
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| Main publications cited: Drewett, P. L., 1991, Prehistoric Barbados, London: Archetype Publications Ltd. Drewett, P. L., 1993, 'Excavations at Heywoods, Barbados, and the Economic Basis of the Suazoid Period in the Lesser Antilles'. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 59, 113-37. Drewett, P. L., 2000, Prehistoric Settlements in the Caribbean: Fieldwork in Barbados, Tortola and the Cayman Islands, London and Barbados: Archetype Publications Ltd. Drewett, P. L. (in press) Above Sweet Waters: Cultural and Natural Change at Port St Charles, Barbados, ca. 1750 BC - AD1850. Archetype Publications Ltd. |
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