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Jamaican Caving Notes |
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June 6, 2004 BELLE AIR CAVE Position: Reserved due to archaeological resources Field notes: D. K. ROGGY Cavers: D. K. Roggy, R. S. Stewart, I. C. Conolley, M. Bellinger, R. Stirling Time in: 12:00 EST, Time out: 14:30 EST THREAT VULNERABILITY: High We entered a shelter cave heading straight back into a hill and dropping down at about a 30 degree angle. The cave was about 10 m long. We knew Taino artifacts had been found here so we looked into all the cracks and crevices present. At the back of the cave was an alcove off to one side and along the wall was a small crevice. It was like a piece of the wall was overhanging a boulder. I turned my head sideways to get it up into the crevice and looked around. Taking my hardhat off and holding it in front of me I saw that there was a decent sized space on the other side. I tried to get through, but thought it was too small an opening. I looked around a bit more and felt that I had to try again. I put my hard hat through and pulled myself up and into the crevice, scraping my coveralls the whole way. I crawled up onto the boulder and saw a chamber extending in front of me about 6m. On the other side of the boulder was a patch of soil with small seeds and shells on the top. Thick pieces of flowstone drapery were there too, indicating that someone had come through that spot and broken them off the ceiling. On the other side of the patch of soil was a ramp of flowstone that sloped upward, with many small stalactites above. Toward the back of the chamber the stalactites met the flowstone ramp. I crawled up the flowstone and noticed some small alcoves off to one side and a small tunnel extending upward, covered with large rocks, around which I could see daylight. It turned out that this whole chamber was a side tunnel, running parallel to the main cave. I looked around and saw a strangely shaped object lying in the middle of the flowstone ramp. It was basically the same color as everything else, but the shape was very odd. It was thin and curved and had some knob like protrusions on it. It was lightweight and the edges revealed a porous internal structure. It seemed possible that it may have been a skull fragment so I brought it out. |
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