Royal Gazette: Smith’s Island archaeology project receives $130,000 grant

Royal Gazette: Smith’s Island archaeology project receives $130,000 grant

An archaeological study of Smith’s Island has been awarded a two-year $130,000 grant to help fund its work.

Michael Jarvis, who leads the Smith’s Island Archaeology Project, said the project had been granted a US National Endowment for the Humanities Archaeology and Ethnography Fieldwork grant.

In a recent blog post, Dr Jarvis said the grant would allow further excavations, as well as support collaboration with Historic Jamestowne and Carika Weldon, a Bermudian geneticist.

“On very short notice I have been able to gather a good crew of talented young archaeologists and archaeology students from some of the top graduate programmes in the US to continue excavations at Smallpox Bay in May and June and to also set up and operate our archaeology lab using the new BNT-ARC facility being set up in the Globe Museum cellar in St. George’s,” said Dr Jarvis, who is the author of In the Eye of All Trade and Isle of Saints, Isle of Devils, books that trace the history of Bermuda from 1609 to 1983.

“With this grant we can take Bermuda archaeology to the next level as we build a 21st-century lab facility, conduct additional ground-penetrating radar surveys and embark on new zooarchaeological and ancient DNA analysis of SIAP site material.”

He wrote that in addition to the $130,000 initial grant, if the project can raise another $20,000 from external sources, the NEH would match that sum.

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May 12, 2023 News