A Trinidad Site Pushed Back the Island’s Human Timeline
At Guaico Tamana, stone tools and surviving deposits point to activity at least a millennium older than the site long treated as Trinidad’s earliest.
The Location
In the eastern part of Trinidad's Central Range, archaeologists have identified Guaico Tamana, an early Holocene site that challenges the island's old archaeological starting point. A 2026 study in Latin American Antiquity reports that it is at least 1,000 years older than Banwari Trace, long regarded as Trinidad's oldest site.
What's There
A stone spearpoint with a contracting stem resembles a point found at nearby Biche in 1988. The researchers also describe local chert cobbles and test excavations in surviving intact deposits. Much of the site has been disturbed; the case does not depend on pretending the entire ground is pristine.
- Tools: the excavations document biface reduction in Trinidad for the first time, according to the authors.
- Contrast: later stoneworking on the island is often characterized by bipolar percussion.
- Proposed time span: roughly 9500–8000 years before present, or approximately 10,750–8,880 calibrated years before present in the paper.
The History
The authors propose a Guaico Tamana complex between the earlier El Jobo and later Early Banwari Trace complexes. Their interpretation draws on artefacts and deposits that may reflect multiple visits over decades or centuries, not a single frozen moment. Chert sources at Chert Hill and Malchan Hill are relatively close, although redeposited cobbles were available locally too.
The Mystery
How many other places from this early period survive beneath disturbed landscapes? That is a research question, not evidence of a lost civilization. Guaico Tamana matters because one mappable site makes an established island timeline more complicated—and because remaining intact deposits might refine it further.
A timeline can change when the ground offers a new starting point.