Rare Calusa Artifacts Found in Waterlogged Florida Midden

PINELAND, FLORIDA—News-Press reports that University of Florida archaeologists Karen Walker and William Marquardt have excavated a 1,000-year-old midden on southwestern Florida’s Pine Island, where there was a large Calusa town some 1,000 years ago. The midden was formed at a time when the water table was low. “Then it rose pretty quickly,” Marquardt said. “We think it rose quickly enough that it sealed in this deposit, so it created an anaerobic situation and preserved the material.” The team had to pump out the groundwater to retrieve pieces of rope, nets with shell weights, twine, pieces of worked wood, and seeds. The researchers, who were assisted by volunteers, also recovered the tiny shells of truncatella snails that lived along the high-tide line. “Finding these guys here tells us where the shoreline was a thousand years ago,” Marquardt explained. To read more about archaeology in Florida, go to “Letter from Florida: People of the White Earth."