Her­itage sites in Trinidad and To­ba­go must be pre­served to safe­guard the coun­try’s his­to­ry, ac­cord­ing to vis­it­ing ar­chae­ol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor Mark Hauser, who is lead­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion work at the his­toric Cedar Grove Es­tate in South Trinidad.

Hauser, a pro­fes­sor of an­thro­pol­o­gy at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, said pro­tect­ing sites like Cedar Grove is crit­i­cal to un­der­stand­ing the lives of en­slaved and in­den­tured work­ers who shaped the na­tion.

“Recog­nis­ing his­toric sites like this is crit­i­cal,” he said, not­ing that preser­va­tion ef­forts by the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go and The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies are a key step in en­sur­ing these spaces are not lost.