Excavations at Los Buchillones, Cuba.

Excavations at Los Buchillones, Cuba. Between 1989 and 1994, north coast fishermen Nelson Torna and PedroGuerra Pedro Manuel Guerra Mansito (2 June 1966 in G����mar, Teneriffe) is a singer-songwriter from the Spanish Canary Islands. BiographyGuerra is the son of Pedro Guerra Cabrera, the first President of the Canarian parliament. salvaged approximately 195 well-preserved wooden artefacts,mostly of lignum vitae, from recently disturbed marine sediments neartheir village of Punta Alegre, in Ciego de Avila, Cuba. They hadcollected the artefacts from a shallow lagoon, and from the shorelinenear their village at a place known as Los Buchillones. The woodenartefacts include pins, eyed needles, hooks, fragments of dishes,handles for axes (including two that retained the stone tools), duhos orstools that served as badges of rank in Taino society, and zemis or maledeity figures. In 1994, on an official Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum, commonly known as the ROM (rhyming with Tom), is a major museum for world culture and natural history in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. visit toCuba, then curator David Pendergast was shown these artefacts, anddiscussions began between Pendergast and Cuban archaeologists Dr JorgeCalvera and Lic. Juan Jardines concerning the possibility of launchingan investigation of the contexts from which the artifacts had come. TheRoyal Ontario Museum (ROM) thereby established a jointly directed andjointly funded project with the Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia, yMedio Ambiente (CITMA) of the government of Cuba, and investigationsbegan in 1997. In 1999-2000, the base of operations Noun 1. base of operations - installation from which a military force initiates operations; "the attack wiped out our forward bases"baseair base, air station - a base for military aircraftarmy base - a large base of operations for an army for the LosBuchillones Project changed from the Royal Ontario Museum to theInstitute of Archaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. , University College London “UCL” redirects here. For other uses, see UCL (disambiguation).University College London, commonly known as UCL, is the oldest multi-faculty constituent college of the University of London, one of the two original founding colleges, and the first British . Co-Directors of theProject are David Pendergast (IoA), and Jorge Calvera (CITMA);Sub-Directors are Elizabeth Graham (IoA) and Juan Jardines (CITMA). Excavations have been carried out in 1997, 1998 and 1999. Noexcavations are planned for 2000, but a major investigation will belaunched in 2001. Investigations in 1997 focused on the lagoon, and adam of sandbags and plastic sheeting, plus a sump pump, enabled a broadview of a portion of the lagoon floor near the lagoon mouth. A number ofwooden artefacts were recovered, but had been secondarily deposited.Excavations in 1998 focused just offshore, on a semi-circular line ofsubmerged post butts previously discovered by Torna and Guerra. Sandbag SandbagA stalling tactic used by management to deter a company that is showing interest in taking them over.Notes:The company stalls in hopes that a more favorable company will take them over. damming and pumping, and initial removal of c. 5 cm of sediments,revealed the primary, secondary and tertiary rafters of a conical roof,with smaller transverse members that were clearly the stringers on whichthe palm leaves of roof thatch would have been hung. Two king posts werealso uncovered, with forked tops, between which were portions of whatwas probably the roof's apex beam. We estimated the interior spaceto have been 26 m in diameter. All elements were planned andphotographed, but none was removed. It was clear that furtherinvestigation would require more sophisticated, non-destructiveexcavation technology, and excavations planned for 1999 were moved backto the lagoon. The plan was to focus on disturbed deposits until fundscould be raised to support investigative techniques -- both in terms ofthe dam design, and the excavation strategy -- that would permit minimaldamage to deposits with maximum recovery of information. As fate wouldhave it "As Fate Would Have It" is an episode of the science fiction television series The 4400. SynopsisNTAC offers Jordan Collier protection when Maia has a morbid premonition. , the 1999 excavations in the lagoon, which explored an areaadjacent to that exposed in 1997, exposed another collapsed house. This,however, was rectangular or square in shape, and had collapsed towardsthe northwest corner. There was a greater mixing of roof elements as aresult, but preservation was excellent and, as in the case of the firststructure, palm-leaf thatch and food remains were well preserved.Radiocarbon dates of House I elements suggest occupation from the 13thto the mid 17th centuries. No wooden elements were removed, and plansfor 2001 include the use of caissons, non-invasive recording technologyand construction of suspended working platforms to enable recording atthe same time that the deposits are protected from disturbance. ELIZABETH GRAHAM, DAVID M. PENDERGAST, JORGE CALVERA & JUANJARDINES (*) Graham & Pendergast, Institute of Archaeology, UniversityCollege London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, England. Calvera,CITMA, Centro de Antropologia, Delegaciones Ciego de Avila y Camaguey,Marcial Gomez 401, Ciego de Avila, Cuba. Jardines, CITMA, Centro deAntropologia, Departamento Centro-Oriental de Arqueologia, DelegacionHolguin, Peralta s/n, Reparto Peralta, Holguin, Cuba.