SECAR and our search for scientific integrity

 

 

 

 

(This blogpost will be updated regularly according to new finding in our investigation)

The fact that local archaeological organization SECAR (St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research) is able to do archaeological research apparently without adhering to the regulations to which archaeological organizations in the Netherlands are obliged to adhere was shocking to us. We already wrote about the excavations carried out at the Godet site, which is left in a horrible condition and ancestral human remains have surfaced.

We have started our own investigation into the applicable regulations and supervisory authorities to find out who we can hold accountable for this. St. Eustatius is officially a public entity of the Netherlands, but since February 2018 the local government was taken over by the Dutch government. In charge now are two government representatives appointed by the Dutch government.

For readers who are not familiar with the Dutch political situation and governmental structures, we invite you to read the blog post Dutch takeover of St. Eustatius (2018). The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations is the Dutch ministry responsible for the three Caribbean public entities, Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. These three public entities are often referred to as BES islands. Mr. Raymond Knops is the responsible deputy minster.

Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations

In response to questions on the excavations raised by the Parliamentary Committee of Kingdom Relations, Mr. Knops stated that the archaeological excavations are the responsibility of the government commissioner at the public body of St. Eustatius, and that the role of his ministry and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is limited to following the case and giving advice where necessary.

With an archaeological discovery at the scale of the Golden Rock plantation burial ground and the limited resources of the local government that seems very strange to us. Besides that, the local government is in fact the ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations because there is no elected government at this moment. 

We have tried to get some information from the Ministry itself as well. Our first email to the Public Information of the Ministry went out on July 8, 2021. We asked if we could have a short informative meeting with the responsible department. On August 19, we received a response: "We've looked into it on our side and we come to the conclusion that this is a local matter of the Public Entity St. Eustatius." On October 10, we have refuted that the responsibility lies with the public entity St. Eustatius and have again asked for a short interview with someone within the Ministry. We are awaiting a response to this email. 

Our follow up step is to write to the Parliamentary Committee again.

Ministry of Education, Culture and Science

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (in Dutch: ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, OCW) is responsible for educational, cultural and scientific affairs within the Caribbean Netherlands.

We also asked the ministry of Education, Culture and Science for additional information as there is a department Caribbean Netherlands within the ministry and we feel that as Dutch citizens who have concerns about certain issues it is a democratic right to voice these concerns and to be able to inform ourselves. 

The ministry did let us know that the Higher Education and Scientific Research Act (in Dutch: Wet op het hoger onderwijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek (WHW) is applicable in Caribbean Netherlands according to Article 1.1a of the WHW  

Our last request for further information and invitation for an informative meeting was sent on October 11, 2021.

National Office for the Caribbean Netherlands

On July 11, 2021, we also asked the National Office for the Caribbean Netherlands (in Dutch: Rijksdienst Caribisch Nederland) for more information on responsibilities regarding archaeological research in Caribbean Research. This office is located on Bonaire and is the link between the ministries that are present on Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. It has a department Education, Culture and Science. The question we asked: "Can you inform us about the (possible) role of the National Office for the Caribbean Netherlands in the case of the excavations on St. Eustatius and the scientific control over SECAR's activities?" We are still awaiting a response, but according the listing of responsibilities on its website, this department is of no importance in relation to archaeological research in Caribbean Netherlands.

KNAW - Controlling body Science

According to the Higher Education and Scientific Research Act The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (in Dutch: KNAW, Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen) has a controlling function in ensuring scientific integrity, ethics, and preventing misconduct. 

We have asked the KNAW about its responsibilities in relation to scientific research in the Caribbean Netherlands. According to the KNAW no scientific research is conducted at SECAR so the KNAW has no responsibilities regarding SECAR. The reason for this is that the archaeologists of SECAR are not affiliated to a scientific organization and publications are not published in academic journals. 

SECAR does work with archaeologist from other countries so will look further into this.

Archaeological and cultural heritage bodies in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands there is a Cultural Heritage Agency and a Information and Heritage Inspectorate. SIKB is a network organization and platform for discussions about quality in archaeology.

• Cultural Heritage Agency (in Dutch: De Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed). In July 2021, we had a meeting with a delegation of this agency.  
  

• The Information and Heritage Inspectorate (Dutch: Inspectie Overheidsinformatie en Erfgoed) 

• SIKB - a network in which the private and the public sector strive to continuously and structurally enhance the standards of activities relating to soil management in the Netherlands (in Dutch: SIKB, Stichting Infrastructuur Kwaliteitsborging Bodembeheer) 

See also: Who does what in the care of cultural heritage? (governmental website)

 

Legislation

 

The Heritage Act (in Dutch the Erfgoedwet) came into force as of July 1, 2016. The text of the Heritage Act is available in English as well. 

The website of the Information and Heritage Inspectorate states the conditions for excavations:

"It is important that an excavation is carried out carefully and that everything is documented very precisely. Strict rules apply to this. These are laid down in:

• the Heritage Act
• the Archeology Heritage Act Decree (in Dutch)
  
• the Quality Standard for Dutch Archaeology (in Dutch
  
• a special Assessment Guideline."

The Heritage Act contains a special section on the Dutch Caribbean (Chapter 1.8 page 45) that states that on the following topics in the Heritage Act does not apply to the Dutch Caribbean (Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba):

1. The current legislative proposal
2. The acts that have been integrated into the legislative proposal
3. The chapter on management of collections
4. The implementing legislation for the First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
   (Implementation) Act
5. Other conventions in the area of cultural heritage do apply in the Caribbean Netherlands, however, including the World Heritage Convention, the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of
   Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Granada Convention, and the Valletta Convention. In so far as necessary, these conventions have been implemented in specific BES Islands legislation.
   

The section explains: 

For monuments and archaeology, there is a separate act, namely the Monuments and Historic Buildings (BES Islands) Act [Monumentenwet BES]. Based on that Act and the regulations applying to the BES Islands, the island governments can assign protected status to monuments. The Monuments and Historic Buildings (BES Islands) Act comprises a different system of protection to that in the
legislation applying to the European part of the Netherlands. In the European part, the protection of
monuments and archaeology is safeguarded above all in the legislation on spatial planning, and the Caribbean Netherlands has a different regime for that legislation also.

 

The Monuments and Historic Buildings (BES Islands) Act [in Dutch: Monumentenwet BES]

The Monuments Act BES applies to the Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba). Executive councils and island councils and owners are responsible for the management and preservation of protected monuments. Archaeological heritage is supposed to fall under what is defined as "monuments" in the act.

 

Artilcle 13 deals with supervising compliance with the act. No more is said than this: "The persons designated for that purpose by the Executive Council are charged with supervising compliance with the provisions laid down by or pursuant to this Act. Such designation shall be published in the Government Gazette (in Dutch: Staatscourant").

 

Then who controls what SECAR does?

In the Heritage Act is stipulated that archaeological excavations must have a certificate. This is regulated in Article 5.1 of the Heritage Act. On the website of the SIKB is a list of certified companies. SECAR is not listed as holder of a certificate. 

Also in the Heritage Act is the obligation to publish a report with the results within two years of completion of that research if archaeological research is carried out somewhere in the Netherlands. 

 

Each report must in any case be delivered to the Cultural Heritage Agency, to the archaeological depot where the findings and documentation are kept, and to the municipality where the archaeological research took place.  

But since the Heritage Act is not applicable in St. Eustatius, SECAR seems to be able to do what it thinks is best. In an earlier stage (June 2021) we contacted SECAR and asked about the research questions on the Golden Rock excavations and what archeological regulations the research team is following. SECAR responded that it works according to the KNA (Quality Standard for Dutch Archaeology) as much as possible. "Given the importance of this location", SECAR stated, "we often go one step further and document in more detail than is strictly necessary". 

Note: The KNA is available in English but based on an earlier version (version 2.1) and is therefore for orientation only -> KNA 2.1 in English  

 

-> KNA in Dutch, version 4.0 for work started after 1 July 2017.

Important to notice is that the KNA is a European based quality standard. Since in the European Netherlands no burial grounds of enslaved Africans exist, the quality standard does not directly deal with archaeological excavations of burial grounds like that. 

The research questions are:

1. Are additional remains of the pre-Columbian Golden Rock settlement present in the research

area that have not yet been excavated by Leiden University in the 1980s?

2. What new information can these remains provide about Saladoid settlement patterns in

general and on the Golden Rock site in particular?

3. What new information can these remains provide about the indigenous peoples’ diets,

funerary practices, inter-island mobility, and exchange networks with other islands?

4. What is the spatial relationship between the burial ground, the slave quarters, and any other

plantation structures at the Golden Rock plantation?

5. How does this spatial relationship compare to other plantations on St. Eustatius and

neighboring islands?

6. What was the socio-economic status of the people buried here?

A. Were people buried in coffins? If so, what materials are they composed of?

B. What types of grave goods accompanied the buried individuals?

C. Are grave markers present? If so, what kinds of grave markers were used?

D. In which positions were these people buried, and is this indicative of religious beliefs?

7. What is the state of preservation of the buried individuals and associated coffins/artifacts?

A. Does the state of preservation vary throughout the site?

B. If so, what taphonomic processes caused varying states of preservation?

8. What can the information provided by the buried human remains reveal about these peoples’

lifeways?

A. What is the ancestry of these people (aDNA study)?

B. What diet did these people have (stable isotope study)?

C. Did these people grow up on St. Eustatius or somewhere else (stable isotope study)?

D. Were these people subjected to infectious diseases (proteomics study)?

E. Do the skeletal remains show evidence of hard physical labor, injury or violence

(osteoarchaeological study)?

9. During which years was the burial ground in use as evidenced from associated artifacts and

14C dating?

10. Have any burials been disturbed, and if so, what caused these disturbances and what is their

nature and extent?

11. How does this burial ground compare to other burial grounds containing people of similar

socio-economic status in the Caribbean region and beyond?

To be continued ...