The Pearls site is located on the windward eastern coast on rich agricultural land along the north side of the Simon River. The site is about one-quarter mile inland from the Atlantic Ocean. The coast is low and the river's gradient gradual. The airport and river are to the south, level farmland to the north, a low hill above the bend in the river to the west, and low, swampy land that separates the site from the ocean to the east.

Grenada is the crucial first link in the stepping-stone chain of islands that extend from mainland South America to the Atlantic coast of Florida. The late Ripley P. Bullen was the first modern professional archaeologist to investigate Grenada. During the fall of 1962 he examined 14 archaeological sites. At the Pearls Airport site, Bullen excavated two 7.5 by 10 foot units to a maximum depth of 16 inches. Bullen's (1964) excavations were near the airport runway in an area that lacked evidence of earthmoving associated with airport construction. A substantial portion of the artifacts recovered by Bullen, including his type collection, are curated at the Florida Museum of Natural History. A catalog of the collection is available on request.

For the 25 years following Bullen's investigations the island of Grenada received almost no attention from professional archaeologists. There was a brief survey by Dr. Henry Petitjean Roget in the 1980s, and avocational archaeologists collected information on site locations, but little came of those efforts. This lack of attention was due, in part, to the unspectacular character of Bullen's finds, the site's location adjacent to an active runway, Grenada's sometimes unstable political situation, and the false sense that the Island-Arawak colonization of the West Indies could be explained with the data already available from Grenada and other islands.

In August of 1988 and January of 1989, the Foundation for Field Research sponsored surface surveys and test excavations, led by Thomas Banks and Annie Cody, at the Pearls site. According to their report the work comprised a portion of a feasibility study looking in the possibilities for a major excavation. However, their investigations failed to establish the most basic outline of site parameters.

In August 1989, a third expedition, led by William Keegan and Annie Cody, was undertaken. At that time I directed efforts toward determing the spatial configuration of the site and to evaluate the impact of airport construction on the southern side. The main objective was to obtain the information needed to formulate an appropriate research strategy (Keegan and Cody 1990).

The site has been the focus of local looting for at least a generation. Prior to 1987, the main booty was pottery "adornos," which are zoomorphic (animal-like) heads that served as handles on the top or sides of pots. These heads were sold to the tourists who frequented the Pearls Airport, which was the island's main airport until 1986. In 1987, a carved "green stone" pendant was found and what might be called a "jade rush" ensued. These artifacts, often shaped like small frogs, are made from a variety of green-color stones including nephrite. At least 10 carved green stone artifacts have been found and sold during the past two years. In addition, at least 20 complete pottery vessels (bowls, platters, bottles, pitchers, and incense burners) have been recovered and sold.

The knowledge gained from scientific investigations, combined with that coming from the activities of looters, suggested that Pearls could be the best location in the West Indies to investigate cultural developments during Saladoid/Huecoid times (ca. 300 BC to AD 400). The site's significance is that the artifacts link Pearls stylistically to sites in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico and on the South American mainland. True to Bullen's expectations, the artifacts of Pearls bear witness to the cultural developments which archaeologists in the region now contest (see Siegel 1989). Most notable is the cultural florescence known as Huecoid or Guapoid named for the la Hueca site on Vieques Island, east of Puerto Rico, or the Rio Guapo site in Venezuela.

Bullen's excavations were too limited, his pottery typology too ideosyncratic, and his chronology too general to serve present objectives. Our preliminary test excavations indicated that Bullen's collection characterizes only the disturbed area adjacent to the airport. It also became clear that the site has a very complicated layout, and that much more information was needed about this layout and the surface distributions of deposits before systematic, controlled excavations could be started. Of immediate necessity were three types of base maps: topographic, electromagnetic conductivity, and stratigraphic. These maps were needed to make possible the identification of the areas most suited for the study of cultural development at Pearls.

The primary objective for the 1990 field season was to define the Pearls site in three-dimensional space, both above and below the surface, and to investigate changes in the site and its environment through time. To accomplish these objectives several specialists were brought to Grenada and other specialized analyses were undertaken at the Florida Museum of Natural History. This report is composed of descriptions of the data that were collected and their analysis by the specialists who are conducting these studies. These studies include the analysis of aerial photographs, topographic mapping, electromagnetic conductivity, soils, and excavated materials. A second objective was the study of diet at Pearls. This objective is being met through the analysis of human bones, animal bones, and fossilized plant remains. Until artifacts can be placed in the larger context of the site, they are of little value.