A Pelican Bowl from Anguilla’s Shoal Bay East

Help yourself to a giant beakful of Caribbean history as we talk pelicans past and present with John Crock. As you will hear John has a voice that was made to be on the radio, but fortunately for us he would rather do archaeology on Anguilla, where he found this week’s object: a pelican bowl.
Is it coincidence it was found one of the most beautiful beaches on earth? Why does this round-bellied bowl have pelican iconography and what are some of the other important sites on this small, yet friendly and archaeologically important island? Listen to this fisherman’s tale right now!

To look at while you listen to us:

A close-up of the bowl with the pelican and a pattern appearing like folded wings clearly visible (photo courtesy of John Crock)

The Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis; photo by Terry Foote, do not copy without author attribution)

Another pelican bowl from Anguilla, from the Sandy Ground site (Photo courtesy of John Crock)

Pelican imagery from Cuba (Dacal Mouré and Rivero de la Calle 1996: 111)

Shoal Bay East, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. (Photo courtesy of John Crock)

Map of Anguilla, with some of the places mentioned in this episode

Further information:

• John’s academia.edu where you can read about other research he has been doing on Anguilla.
• Fun pelican facts, courtesy of National Geographic.
• Website of Anguilla’s Archaeological and Historical Society
• Website of Anguilla’s tourist board in case you would be planning a trip for yourself. We can only recommend it!
• Diving near Shoal Bay, so you can check out some of these famous fish reserves for yourself.
• Listen to our other episodes featuring animals as objects:
  • An adorno from Brighton Beach.
  • A frog stone pendant from Escape.

As always thank you for listening and please share this podcast with friends, family and general fans of cool objects that are part of enigmatic yet still world-spanning histories. Have some recipes for fish stew to share? Would you like to know more about this or other zoomorphic imagery in the Caribbean? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @theshoresoftime Also tell us what you think of the podcast and how we can improve the way we  share these stories of the Caribbean and its objects. We are also always on the lookout for new objects and their stories, so if you have something to share, from the modern Caribbean to PaleoIndian times, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sadly this marks the end of our SAA interviews. We are also still on our summer schedule, which means we will be back with a regular but hopefully equally riveting episode in 2 weeks. We’ll talk to you then, but for now remember: In this great future you can’t forget your past!

Acknowledgements: This podcast was made possible thanks to financial support by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Alice is employed by University of Leicester’s School of Ancient History and Archaeology and Angus works at Stanford University’s Archaeology Center. John Crock is associate professor at Vermont University’s Anthropology Department.