Under the direction of Dr. Robert Drennan, Mr. Augusto Oyuela- Caycedo will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. During previous work near the town of San Jacinto, Columbia, Mr. Oyuela- Caycedo located a series of sites one of which, San Jacinto 1, contained pottery which radiocarbon dated to ca. 5940 years ago. The sherds were recovered in a secure stratigraphic context, contained within what appear to be a series of hut floors and are now the oldest known pottery recovered from good stratigraphic context in the New World. Mr. Oyuela-Caycedo will return to San Jacinto 1 with a team of workmen. They will uncover an area of ca. 64-100 square meters and excavate it to the base of the archaeological deposit. Materials recovered will permit degree of sedentism to be determined. Because of excellent preservation of floral and faunal remains, exploited resources will be identified and their contribution to the diet ascertained. The use of space at the site will also be reconstructed. Characterization of soils and grain size distribution will provide information on the processes of site formation and on the reconstruction of the depositional environment as well as post- depositional alteration. Pottery and lithics will also be analyzed. The site of San Jacinto 1 is important for several reasons. First, the early date of the pottery is of significance for the light it may shed on the sequence of cultural development in the New World. Given the generally poor preservation of faunal and floral remains, relatively little excavation has taken place in such tropical regions as Columbia. Because these archaeological materials appear to be in association with house structures, it will be possible to examine the interrelationship among such variables as the domestication of plants, invention of pottery and the emergence of a sedentary way of life. While archaeologists know that these factors are related, it is unclear how in the development of complex societies these interact and which come first. Mr. Oyuela-Caycedo has found other sites from the same time period in the region and the study of San Jacinto 1 in this broader context should shed new light on this underlying cultural complex. This research is important for several reasons. The appearance of a settled way of life marked a major transition in the development of human culture and work at San Jacinto 1 should improve our understanding of this process. It will provide data of interest to a number of archaeologists and will contribute to the training of an extremely promising young scientist.
