(James) Wednesday Service: Excavating and cleaning archaeological items along the coast at Las Cabezas de San Juan Nature Reserve

Today we returned to Las Cabezas de San Juan to help an archaeologist, Carlos, excavate a site left by indigenous Puerto Ricans. Probably a trash heap off of a kitchen, the site dated back to 400-600 A.D.  We worked with a few volunteers from Luquillo and three archaeologists, including Carlos, who was in charge. We split into two groups, one down in the pit, and another on the beach. The group in the excavation pit were using trowels to gently scrape away the dirt around rocks, shells, bones, and the occasional piece of pottery. Most of the pottery we found was just shards, but Skylar found half of a pot, and Colleen found another large piece with a handle attached to it. After about three hours, we moved down to the beach to strain the dirt out the piles of rocks, pottery, and shells. They will then send these pieces off to be studied closely to figure out what this indigenous group of people ate, and to learn more about how they lived and why they were located on this particular patt of the island. Carlos and the other park employees seemed very grateful that there were so many willing volunteers to do the menial grunt work that would have taken them so long to do.

(Jackie) Colleen had a long conversation in Spanish with Carlos and learned more about this project. Alberto, our guide, discovered bones on this site three years ago, yet there has not been any money to fund a project which would uncover more. Most funding for archaeological excavations goes to brick and mortar type projects (I.e. in the center of the island, near big cities, near a big plaza, etc... nothing along the coast). So this project along the coast is one of the first of its kind, and it is being done completely by volunteers. The only paid employee is Carlos, the head archaeologist. Over the past 2+ years, over 1,000 volunteers, mostly Puerto Ricans, have given their time to help make this project/dig happen so that the island can know more about their cultural history. We sometimes take for granted the great amount of knowledge we have learned about our own California state history, but we have fortunately been funded along the way. That said, we were more than happy to help these folks today with this dig, and they really appreciated our efforts. It was incredibly interesting work, and the kids were so glad to be able to help the Puerto Ricans to gain a little piece of their own culture/history. :)