Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2014 - 51

artifacts. The archaeologists consider themselves
lucky to have found two buildings with material
inside them. According to Thomas Romon, an
INRAP archaeologist who worked on each feld
season on Tromelin, there are probably numerous
additional structures beneath the modern buildings. "We have only a very partial picture of this
set," he says.
The construction and arrangement of the castaways' structures say a great deal about life on the
island, and in some ways even refect the psychological experience of it, according to Guérout. At
the time, people across Madagascar generally lived
in small huts of wood, mud, and thatch, with each
family group on its own plot some distance from
neighbors. Such materials were not available on
Tromelin, so the people there had to make do with
what was on hand. The buildings are composed of
two layers: fat plates of beach sandstone planted in
the ground vertically, topped by coral blocks. This
construction style is unlike any Malagasy home,
but it does have a direct correlate on Madagascar:
burial cists. According to Rasoarifetra, traditionally, all stone buildings would have been reserved
for the dead. "Psychologically, it is very interesting
to understand," says Guérout. "The people chose
to live in what were, in their minds, tombs." To
Rasoarifetra, it represents another cultural shock:
After surviving enslavement, the wreck, and the
abandonment, they even had to overcome their
own cultural prohibitions.
In addition, the buildings, rather than being
separate, shared walls and were clustered in about
half an acre, unlike more difuse villages back home.
The archaeologists found that the castaways had,
at some point, dismantled buildings to erect a wall In Madagascar in the 18th century, homes would have been built of
approximately 20 feet long, probably after a cyclone organic materials, while stone was reserved for the dead. By necessity,
the castaways had to overcome this taboo and live in what would
damaged the hamlet. In these ways, the structures have seemed to them like tombs.
represent systematic adaptation to the lack of space
and the need for protection from cyclones, and they
refect a psychological state: grave-bound, but together, leaning
else is known about their lives. Analysis of the archaeological
upon one another.
fnds, according to Romon, will continue to illuminate the
castaways' technical knowledge and social and religious worlds.
pon their rescue in 1776, the seven adult survivors
The team is planning a detailed publication and a museum
and the child were taken to Mauritius. "What is interexhibit they hope will travel across the Indian Ocean islands.
esting in this history is that between the moment of
"In Malagasy belief, the land belongs to the spirits and ancesthe wreck and the moment of the rescue, the ideas on slavery
tors," says Rasoarifetra. "
Archaeology is an action that awakens
were changing," says Guérout. In 1761, governor Desforgesthe earth to deliver the past." With this in mind, at the outset
Boucher had refused to send help. By 1776, the women were
of the 2013 season, Rasoarifetra arranged a ceremony. She asked
freed upon their arrival. The new steward of Mauritius and
her ancestors for permission for the scientists to dig on their
Réunion, Jacques Maillart-Dumesle, took three of them-the
land, and explained that they were doing it not to destroy, but
child, his mother, and her mother-into his home and had
rather to understand. She poured a little rum into the sand at
them baptized. He christened the child Moses Jacques (after
the northeast corner of the site-the corner that traditionally
himself). His mother, Semiavou, or "one who is not proud,"
belongs to the ancestors. Then every team member took a sip. n
was renamed Eve, and the grandmother dubbed Dauphine.
The other survivors also settled in Mauritius, but nothing
Samir S. Patel is deputy editor at Archaeology.

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Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2014

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