The site is getting more and more interesting and complex by the day. After the 2005 fieldwork we thought that the postholes we excavated belonged to houses from the later ceramic age (Boca Chica), i.e. to a few centuries before Columbus, but now we are excavating more and more areas in which earlier ceramics (Ostinoid) are mixed with the later phase. In terms of my research, this means that I cannot assume that all the postholes (from which in simple terms I hope to reconstruct houses) belong to this later phase, but that we might be dealing with a palimpsest of occupation upon occupation…a most tricky pancake (in the words of Flann O’Brien). We are opening a lot of smaller pits to investigate this relationship between the different phases, which also means we are coming across a lot of goodies – shell pendants, three-pointed stones and even a stone phallus-type object (interpretations never ranged far from this basic one!).

These objects as well as the ornate pottery help the archaeological imagination envisage the people behind the remains.

Yesterday morning before going on site, the whole group visited some of the nearby caves in the area of the site – caves set into the cliffs form the western backdrop of the site, the sea on the east. These caves were the focus of ritual and burial practices in the past – no wonder seeing as they are full of bats and owls and nesting vultures and dripping with stalactites and vaults like huge cathedrals.





little owl for Helena

Some of the caves contain food and ceramic remains as well as evidence for burial (sadly often looted). From the site of El Cabo they are only about a half hour walk and so one could imagine that people living in El Cabo were also those burying their dead in the caves, carving small petroglyphs and carrying out all sorts of unknowable activities there.

Dad, do you know what this is?