Ortoire, in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

, is the archaeological

type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age ...

for the

Ortoiroid people The Ortoiroid people were the second wave of human settlers of the Caribbean who began their migration into the Antilles around 2000 BCE. They were preceded by the Casimiroid peoples (~4190-2165 BCE). They are believed to have originated in the Or ...

, immigrants to the

Antilles The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...

around 2000 BCE. It is a

shell midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

site in southeast Trinidad. Saunders, Nicholas J
''The Peoples of the Caribbean: an Encyclopedia of Archeology and Traditional Culture.''
ABC-CLIO, 2005. . The site is actually made up of five small sites located along a small strip of land between the ocean and a

mangrove swamp Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fre ...

which were excavated in 1953 by

Irving Rouse Benjamin Irving Rouse (August 29, 1913 – February 24, 2006) was an American archaeologist on the faculty of Yale University best known for his work in the Greater and Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, especially in Haiti. He also conducted field ...

. Rouse found manos, flattened mano-

pestle Mortar and pestle is a set of two simple tools used from the Stone Age to the present day to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder in the kitchen, laboratory, and pharmacy. The ''mortar'' () ...

s made from Antillean stone, a

grinding stone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

, bone points and fish and animal remains. Also excavated were

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

and

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

chips and

red ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

pebbles. The site was dated to 800 BCE. The Ortoiroid peoples, migrants who reached

Antigua Island Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbu ...

by canoe from modern Venezuela, probably around 5,000 BCE, are named after the Ortoire site. The site, from the late Archaic Period, is one of the best known archaeological sites on Trinidad. It is on the east coast of the island, near the mouth of the

Ortoire River The Ortoire River is a river in Trinidad and Tobago. It forms the boundary between Nariva County and Mayaro County in east Trinidad. At over in length, it is one of Trinidad's longest rivers and is navigable by very small crafts for at least ...

, and made up of mostly

bivalves Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

including ''donax'' clams and ''

Tivela trigonella Tivela is a genus of saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the subfamily Meretricinae of the family Veneridae, the Venus clams. MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Trigona Megerle von Mühlfeld, 1811. Accessed through: World Regist ...

''. There was evidence of cooking at the site - clay hearths with ash and charcoal and burned shells, bones, and stones that had been cracked by heat. The locations of archaeological sites are often not disclosed. This site, however, may be included in "The Ortoire River and Ortoire Beach Front", an area designated historic by the

National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago The National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago is managed by an eleven-member Council of different expertise and backgrounds. Five members are elected to the position, and six are ministerial appointments. Its offices are located in Port of Spain in Tri ...

, which is located around coordinates .

References

{{reflist Trinidad (island) Archaeological sites in Trinidad and Tobago Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean Pre-Columbian cultures Archaeology of the Caribbean Archaic period in the Americas Archaeological type sites

See also

References