Yvonne Webb

If the arte­facts, in­clud­ing bones, found un­der the Red House are de­ter­mined to be au­then­tic Amerindi­an re­mains, then the site could be pre­served as part of the re­fur­bish­ment of the build­ing, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Trust Vel Lewis said yes­ter­day.Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian in San Fer­nan­do, where he at­tend­ed a meet­ing with may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali to dis­cuss the de­struc­tion of his­toric build­ings in the city, Lewis said the find was be­ing stud­ied to de­ter­mine pre­cise­ly what it was and if it was au­then­tic.

He said: "It could be an Amerindi­an site but we want to con­duct tests to be sure be­fore we can make any de­c­la­ra­tion. Once we have es­tab­lished that, we would then be clear­er as to how to treat with it and dis­cuss with the Par­lia­ment how the site could be pre­served with­in the re­fur­bish­ment of the Red House.

Amerindi­an chief Ri­car­do Bharat-Her­nan­dez be­lieves the bones and arte­facts are those of Amerindi­an an­ces­tors and wants to per­form a re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ny on the site as soon as he gets the all-clear.On Sun­day, he, Lewis and ar­chae­ol­o­gists vis­it­ed the site where the find was made dur­ing restora­tion work on the Red House be­ing un­der­tak­en by Ude­cott. He said the arte­facts, con­sist­ing of pot­tery, a piece of a pipe, which may have been used by a chief, and a bead from a neck­lace, have all been iden­ti­fied as Amerindi­an.

He said some ver­i­fi­ca­tion was need­ed to de­ter­mine the ori­gin of the bones and whether they be­longed to chil­dren or adults.An­oth­er Amerindi­an de­scen­dant, jour­nal­ist Tra­cy Ass­ing, who has made a doc­u­men­tary film about Trinidad's Amerindi­ans, said the find was very im­por­tant.

She said: "Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there aren't that many digs where we on­ly ever dis­cov­er these arte­facts when the lands have al­ready been sold and some­thing con­struct­ed. Then that be­comes an is­sue with the landown­er."In this case the Red House will con­tin­ue to be built. The oth­er is­sue is whether the site can be pro­tect­ed or if a dig can be es­tab­lished or ex­pand­ed."