SARASOTA - A 7,000-year-old native American burial mound was discovered in 21 feet of water off the coast of Manasota Key. Hailed as an archaeological goldmine, the mound contained the remains of at least six humans. While this discovery is certainly a modern marvel, mounds like it were commonplace in Tampa Bay during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century - before they were destroyed by locals and used primarily as road fill during one of Florida's many land booms.
It was just under a year ago when divers discovered what appeared to be human remains off the coast of
Manasota Key, in southern Sarasota County.
The find was reported to
Florida’s Division of Historical Research (DHR) and the Bureau of Archaeological Research (BAR), who launched a months-long study. What they discovered was a burial site over 7,000 years old and so unique, that similar sites have only been found in two other places on the entire planet.
”The site is a revelation for the world of archeology,“ said Dr. Timothy Parsons, director of the DHR and the state’s historic preservation officer. ”The people buried at the site are the ancestors of America’s living indigenous people. Sites like this have cultural and religious significance in the present day.“
Dubbed the Manasota Key Offshore archeological site, the discovery is poised to reveal secrets of Florida’s past, and in turn North America’s.
The other two sites – located in Israel and Denmark – are much like the site located near the City of Venice in Sarasota County: they are submerged in what was once an inland freshwater pond, where the original peoples of the region buried their deceased, according to a media release.
As sea levels rose and the coastline shrunk, what was once inland became submerged, and despite the flooding, the peat moss bottom of the pond remained intact. This slowed the process of organic decay, which allowed the site to stay mostly intact, and provide a window to a time many thought was impossible to study.
”Seeing a 7,000-year-old site that is so well preserved in the Gulf of Mexico is awe inspiring. We are truly humbled by this experience,“ said Dr. Ryan Duggins, underwater archaeology supervisor for BAR. ”This will forever change the way we approach offshore archaeology. As we continue to learn as much as possible from the site, we look forward to sharing that knowledge with the people of Florida.“
It’s wonderful we are discovering such a marvel. Past handling of such sites has been abysmal, with humans disseminating them for use as road fill. In fact many of the older roads in downtown Palmetto and Bradenton were likely filled with the shell from these sacred sites.
According to historical texts, there were several Native American villages created with thousands of years of shell refuse including some burial mounds located all around the Tampa Bay area. In fact, there was such a vast civilization on the Manatee River that Hernando De Soto wrote about native towns and claimed they sent up smoke signals to communicate upon the arrival of his expedition in May of 1539. He and his men found a deserted village, which he described as a ”town with fortified with shell mounds,“ in his journal. He slept in what we now recognize as a temple mound with a wooden house on the top of it. This mound was the primary residence of the chief and also utilized for ceremony.
In the 1700s, Spanish cartographers mapped the area and game present-day Manatee River the name ”Oyster River“. They named it for what looked like oyster beds blocking the river’s entrance and making it, from what they perceived as being unnavigable. Those oyster beds were actually underwater mounds from the shell villages on Shaw’s Point (present-day Desoto Landing) in West Bradenton and Snead Island, according to local historian and archaeologist Bill Burger. While there still are some remnants of the villages at those locations today, they are just a fraction of what the villages once were.
The removal of the shell began as early as 1897, when the shell was removed via horse and buggy to be used as road fill. This practice continued for decades, destroying generations of historical artifacts and wiping out the chance it could ever be studied.
In the 1930s, a man in Palma Sola discovered human remains in a burial mound on his property. In an interview with the Manatee Historical Society, Asa Pillsbury said archeologists from the University of Florida excavated 147 skeletons from the site, much more than were thought to be there. The bodies were in fetal position, with their heads faced up or down and lying on either side with knees flexed.
In her book, ”
The Edge of the Wilderness,“ Janet Snyder Matthews theorizes that Shaw’s Point might have been the village of Ucita, the famous Native American community that welcomed Hernando DeSoto. The burial mound on Asa’s property was a companion to the midden mound now located at DeSoto National Memorial, and at one time a causeway or ridge connected the two. A ridge meandered 100 to 200 feet off the beach and along his walkway joined many smaller mounds. Canals flowed underneath the edifices.
Until his death Pillsbury petitioned for the mound to be included in Desoto National Memorial but it was never added to the site.
It’s those type of losses that make the Manasota Key offshore site so special. There are only so many opportunities left to preserve, study and learn from the past. And while there’s no way to fully repair those mistakes, this site represents one of the best chances to protect what we never should have destroyed in the first place.
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