JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On Tuesday, University of North Florida students quite literally dug up the past.
They took part in an anthropological survey on an island in the Timucuan Ecological Preserve on Jacksonville’s Northside. Like something out of Indiana Jones, it’s a deep track to get into the deep wooded marshland area over to the archaeological site.
“So students are coming out here to learn two things. To learn the craft of archaeology, to learn archaeology in the field, our methodology, and also to learn about the indigenous here in the Jacksonville area,” UNF Anthology Professor Keith Ashley explained.
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And so they did. Lot after lot, into the Earth, students’ shovels excavated a new layer of Timucuan’s oyster shell-covered trash to explore their past. Deep in history, shrouded in mystery, they unearthed items like projectile points or knives, and a fossilised horse tooth.
UNF Anthropology professor Keith Ashley tells Action News Jax that was only a twentieth of the hundreds of artifacts that they found.
The artifacts belong to the Timuca people who, according to the National Park Service, settled here from about 500 BC to the 1800s. Their civilisation assimilated or died off following Spanish and French colonialism.
Any human remains cannot be disturbed by law. According to the students, remains must be turned over to the Seminole or Miccosukee Tribes, one of which will handle the repatriation process.
Anthropology Senior Haley Walker tells Action News Jax it’s important to tell the stories of those who are no longer here to tell them.
“History repeats itself for one thing. And also the more we know about our past, the better you know, we can be as a society going forward,” Walker said.
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And it’s not an easy task to be here all day. They’re not only battling the sun, but the bugs.
“We pretty much get eaten alive by yellow flies when we’re walking in. I think we kill like all the ticks that people are seeing on the news with the Lone Star that make you allergic to red meat,” UNF History/Anthropology senior Austin Thelan explained.
The project has been going on for five weeks. This is the sixth and final week. Students will be taking whatever they find back to a lab for analysis, like carbon dating, as part of a class in the fall.
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