Banwari Trace Archaeological Site

 Upload a photo

The archaeological site of Banwari Trace was recently featured in World Monument Watch 2004, an internationally acclaimed magazine that showcases the world’s 100 most endangered sites. The following article is designed to raise public awareness to an important vestige of Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural heritage.
Dated to about 5000 B.C. (years Before Christ) or 7000 B.P (years Before Present), the archaeological site at Banwari Trace in southwestern Trinidad is the oldest pre-Columbian site in the West Indies (Rouse and Allaire 1978). Archaeological research of the site has also shed light on the patterns of migration of Archaic (pre-ceramic) peoples from mainland South America to the Lesser Antilles via Trinidad between 5000 and 2000 B.C. (.

In November 1969, the Trinidad and Tobago Historical Society discovered the remains of a human skeleton at Banwari Trace. Lying on its left-hand side, in a typical Amerindian “crouched” burial position along a northwest axis (Harris 1978), Banwari Man (as it is now commonly called) was found 20-cm below the surface. Only two items were associated with the burial, a round pebble by the skull and needlepoint by the hip. Banwari Man was apparently interred in a shell midden and subsequently covered by shell refuse. Based on its stratigraphic location in the site’s archaeological deposits, the burial can be dated to the period shortly before the end of occupation, approximately 3,400 BC or 5,400 years old. Hailed as the oldest resident of Trinidad (Harris 1978), Banwari Man is an important icon of Trinidad’s early antiquity.