7,000-year-old Native American burial site found in Gulf of Mexico

[fleur-de-lisa]

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/florida-native-american-indian-burial-underwater/

By Megan Gannon
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Venice is Florida's unofficial capital of fossil hunting. Divers and beachcombers flock to this city on the Gulf Coast, mostly seeking palm-sized teeth of the Megalodon, the enormous shark species that went extinct 2 and half million years ago. In the summer of 2016, a diver searching for those relics picked up a barnacle-crusted jaw from a shallow spot off the shore of Manasota Key. The specimen sat on a paper plate in his kitchen for a couple weeks before he realized it was probably a human bone.

The diver sent a picture to Florida’s Bureau of Archaeological Research, where it landed in front of Ryan Duggins, the bureau’s underwater archaeology supervisor. A single molar was still attached to the jawbone, and the tooth’s cusps were worn smooth, likely from a diet of tough foods. “That’s something we don’t see in modern populations, so that was a quick indicator we were dealing with a prehistoric individual,” Duggins explains.

With a team of fellow underwater archaeologists, Duggins relocated the dive spot about 300 yards from the shore and 21 feet below the surface. “As soon as we were there it became clear that we were dealing with something new,” Duggins recalls. First, he spotted a broken arm bone on the seabed. Then, when he noticed a cluster of carved wooden stakes and three separate skull fragments in a depression, Duggins realized he might be dealing with a Native American bog burial site—one that had been inundated by sea level rise, but was miraculously preserved.

During the last ice age, the Floridian peninsula looked more like a stubby thumb than an index finger. But beginning around 14,000 years ago, the global climate began to warm, causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. Florida shrank over the next several millennia, and countless places where prehistoric people once lived, hunted, and buried their dead disappeared beneath the waves.

Marine archaeologists traditionally believed those now-submerged sites would be too fragile and ephemeral to survive the violent thrashing of the sea. “The vast majority of underwater archaeological projects have historically been focused on shipwrecks,” Duggins says. However, in the past couple of decades, some prehistoric sites, mostly scatters of stone tools, have been identified off Florida’s coast. Duggins thinks what he found near Manasota Key proves these underwater landscapes have much more archaeological potential.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ancient Native American burial site found submerged off Florida

MARCH 2, 2018 3:35 PM

VENICE — State officials say archaeologists have located a 7,000-year-old Native American ancestral burial site submerged in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Wednesday that the Manasota Key Offshore archaeological site is on the continental shelf near Venice, preserved in what appears to have been a peat-bottomed freshwater pond.

Reports of the site began in June 2016 when divers identified possible human skeletal material. Archaeologists have since confirmed that it dates from the Early Archaic period.

Officials say offshore prehistoric burial sites are rare, with others located in Israel and Denmark.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ancient-burial-site-20180302-story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+orlandosentinel%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fstate+%28OrlandoSentinel.com+-+State+News%29

[Judi Lynn]

2. 'Unprecedented' 7,000-year-old Native American burial site discovered by amateur diver off coast off

Fossil hunter looking for shark teeth alerts authorities after coming across ancient jawbone

Tom Embury-Dennis @tomemburyd an hour ago

An amateur diver accidentally made an “unprecedented” discovery by unearthing a 7,000-year-old Native American burial site off the coast of Florida.

The fossil hunter said he was was looking for shark teeth when he came across an ancient jawbone while swimming near Manasota Key in the Gulf of Mexico in 2016.

Scientists were alerted to the site when the unnamed diver alerted the Bureau of Archaeological Research to possible human remains.

Archaeologists believe the site, which used to be a freshwater “peat-bottomed” pond, was once used by indigenous people to bury their family members.

More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/native-american-burial-site-florida-gulf-mexico-unprecedented-amateur-diver-a8236581.html