The most spectacular find at the Coralie site is a wooden canoe paddle discovered by Capt. Bob Gascoine. In February 1997, Elise LeCompte directed systematic underwater excavations where the canoe paddle was found. A few additional pieces of worked wood were recovered, but nothing of definite Indian manufacture. Samples of peat collected during these excavations will aid in our efforts to recreate the aboriginal environment.

The most common artifact in the site is broken pieces of pottery vessels ("potsherds"). All of the more than 1,800 potsherds from the site contain mineral sand tempers. Because the Turks and Caicos are composed entirely of limestone, this pottery must have been imported from the Greater Antilles. Stylistically the pottery is all Ostionan Ostionoid, with both fineware and crudeware represented. This is the first pure Ostionan site discovered north of Hispaniola. Several sherds merit specific comment. Several large sherds from navicular (boat-shaped) bowls with a strap handles rising above the rim are classic Ostionan. A red-painted appendage, in the shape of a turtle's flipper, and a wedge-shaped lug with the face of a turtle, came from an effigy bowl (a bowl shaped like an animal). The complete bowl would have had the turtle head lug at one end and four flippers arranged just below the rim of an oval vessel. Finally, numerous griddle sherds have been recovered, including one from a griddle that was 1.5 feet in diameter. The presence of griddles suggests that cassava bread was being made at the site, an activity associated with sites occupied for a long period of time.

Most of the sherds show evidence of over-use. Earthenwares fired in an oxygen-rich environment, like Ostionan pottery, typically have a darker core which results from lower internal temperatures during firing. The sherds from Coralie lack a dark core which indicates that they have been heated completely through. Such complete heating reduces the structural integrity of a vessel causing it to break more easily. In the language of ceramic technologists, they become "friable." Several very large sherds in our excavations were so friable that they had the appearance and texture of popcorn. This situation suggests that pots were in short supply, perhaps because they all had to be imported from the Greater Antilles. Whatever the reason, the pots and griddles were used so much that the clay was cooked completely through until they lost their elastic properties and crumbled.

The site is notable for its unusual collection of animal bones, especially green sea turtles, which occur nowhere else in the region in such abundance. In addition to large quantities of turtle bones, we recovered the bones of iguanas, snakes, birds, and large fishes. Using the zooarchaeological convention of estimating the minimum number of individuals,+ we counted at least 518 animals, 413 conchs, and 212 other mollusks in the 220 lbs of animal bones and shell that were excavated in 1993. In terms of meat yields, 57% of the diet came from sea turtles, 24% from fishes, 12% from iguanas, 5% from queen conch, and less than 1% each from birds, spiny lobster, and other mollusks. The most common bird in the sample was the red-footed booby, a bush nesting species that is commonly extirpated when humans arrive in their territory. Today there is only one nesting colony of red-footed boobies in all of the Bahamas.