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Rock-Cut Basins on Saint Lucia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Rev. C. Jesse*
Affiliation:
Castries, Saint Lucia, B.W.I.

Extract

For some time I have been trying to find a meaning to certain rock-cut basins on Saint Lucia in the British West Indies. One series, numbering 35 small basins, is situated at Micoud on the southeast coast (Fig. 76). This series is in a straight line at the edge of a bay; in fact, it ends right in the sea. An attempt to photograph it failed. There is a second series about a mile to the south, not far from the sea, on the top of a rocky elevation above a stream, (Fig. 76). Here again, I have not yet been able to get photographs. The third series is also on the east, or windward, coast at a place called Dauphin. The following is a brief account of my findings at this place.

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1952

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References

1 I am indebted to the Headmaster of St. Maiy's College at Castries for accompanying me on my journey to Dauphin and for taking the photographs (Fig. 77).

2 José M. Cruxent, “Archaeology of Cotua Island, Amazonas Territory, Venezuela,” American Antiquity, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1950, pp. 10, H-Rock basins have also been reported from the island*1 of Martinique; see, for example, Eugene Revert, La Martinique, Paris, 1949, pp. 199-202.

3 Since writing the above article I have examined two sites with rock-cut basins on the Leeward side of Saint Lucia. In one case the basins are close to a petroglyph of simple design, at a spot where a ravine falls into the sea. Perhaps this may lend weight to the supposition that petroglyphs and basins figured in some kind of religious cult.