A permanent exhibition, focused on the recent archaeological excavations and findings at Argyle, will be unveiled during the International Garifuna Summit, which will be held here in March.

The exhibit, which is a large-scale model of the early indigenous village excavated at the airport site at Argyle, will be presented at the National Library in Kingstown, where it will become a permanent feature.{{more}}

According to a release from the Garifuna Heritage Foundation (TGHF), Dr Corrine Hofman and Dr Jimmy Mans of Leiden University will be in St Vincent during the Summit to present the model which has been “painstakingly crafted” by Eric Pelissier.

The official opening of the exhibit will take place on Monday, March 9, between 9 and 11 a.m.

Pelissier’s model is based on drawings and photographs from the 2010 fieldwork at Argyle, which was directed by Dr Hofman and Professor Menno Hoogland in collaboration with the St Vincent National Trust and the St Vincent and the Grenadines International Airport Development Company Ltd.

The model will be accompanied by five educational posters, which help to explain the context of the early indigenous village, and which highlight the importance of archaeology in re-discovering and sharing these normally invisible indigenous histories.

Dr Hofman is Dean of the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden and a member of the UNESCO National Commission in the Netherlands. She is a professor of Caribbean archaeology and directs the Caribbean Research Group at the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. Dr Jimmy Mans is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University and works together with Dr Hofman. He is the author of the book Amotopoan Trails: A Recent Archaeology of Trio Movements, which focuses on his archaeological work in Suriname.

Dr Hofman and Dr Mans will also be presenting a paper on Garifuna and Kalinago archaeologies in the Lesser Antilles, on Thursday, March 12 at the International Garifuna Summit’s Academic Conference.