Friday, August 20th
8:30 am: Zoom Room Opens
9:00 am: Welcome and Introductions
- Dr. Paul Backhouse, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Seminole Tribe of Florida
- Dr. Kathryn O. Miyar, Florida State Archaeologist
- Dr. David Anderson, Professor of Anthropology at The University of Tennesse
9:15 am: HMS Florida 2020-2021: A Year in Review
Sarah E. Miller, FPAN Northeast, Patrisha Gidusko-Meyers, Kassie Kemp, HMS Florida Program
The Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) launched the Heritage Monitoring Scout (HMS Florida) program statewide at the first Tidally United Summit in 2016. Since that time, over 800 volunteers signed up and submitted over 2480 monitoring forms from across the state. This paper will review highlights from the fifth year of HMS, share novel approaches to monitoring with volunteers initiated by FPAN staff, discuss preliminary findings from our two-year study funded by a Florida Department of State Special Category grant, and share what’s in store for 2022.
9:30 am: 30
Years On; a Look at Changes to Sites within the Waccasassa Bay Preserve State
Park
Jeff Moates, FPAN West Central
Archaeologists and graduate students had an
in-depth look at the islands and sites within Waccasassa Bay Preserve State
Park in the early 1990s. Their assessments, coordinated and authored by
archaeologist Paul Jones, set the baseline for another look nearly thirty years
later. Waccasassa Bay presents an almost completely untouched, or undeveloped,
area of the Gulf Coast. Among the coastal marsh and hammock lands, home to the
Timucua and others and the nearby landowners of timber and railroad towns of
Rosewood, Sumter, and Otter Creek are the vanishing remains of what they left behind.
9:45 am: Keeping the Spotlight on JILONA: Preservation and
Protection of Archaeological Sites along the shoreline at the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area
Sara
Ayers-Rigsby, FPAN Southeast Peter De Witt, BLM, and Karen Moore, BLM
The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area is
renowned for its natural beauty and historic lighthouse. The site also
documents deep time occupation of the area, featuring shell middens dating from
6000 years ago as well as more recent historic World War II era features. The
site is at serious risk due to climate change and severe weather events, losing
an average of 2 feet of shoreline per year. This paper will explore documentation of loss at the site through the HMS program and how this
documentation has led to new archaeological insights of the area as well as
informing long term management decisions.
10:00 am: Questions(15 minutes)
10:15 am: Break
10:30 am: Tilling Fresh Soil: Rediscovering Overlooked
Pasts at Maclay Gardens State Park
Barbara Clark, FPAN North Central, Tristan Harrenstein, FPAN North Central, Christopher Wilson, Alfred B.
Maclay Gardens State Park
Heritage Monitoring Scouts has the capability
to help Florida Parks and other public historic sites diversify their
interpretation. Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, known for its lush
botanical gardens and associated historic structures, is also the site of a
lesser known African American community. Through monitoring of sites associated
with the African American Overstreet Community, Maclay Gardens staff can help
to shed light on and share the story of the diverse population that once called
this property home.
10:45 am: Shell
Middens, Sugar Mills and Ticks Galore! Monitoring in the Tomoka Basin
Emily Jane Murray, FPAN Northeast, Sarah Miller, FPAN Northeast, Phil Rand, FL State Parks, Emma Dietrich, FPAN East Central, and Jon Endonino, Eastern Kentucky University
The Northeast Regional Center worked with staff at the
Tomoka Basin State Parks to monitor 44 archaeological sites throughout Bulow
Creek, Bulow Plantation Historic Ruins, Tomoka, and Addison Blockhouse State
Parks. Sites included coastal shell middens, historic plantations, earthen
works, and industrial ruins. Additionally, two sites were documented using a
terrestrial laser scanner, the Bulow Plantation Sugar Ruins, and the McHardy
Mill. This paper will detail the collaboration between park staff, FPAN, and
other archaeologists as well as summarize the findings of monitoring efforts including site conditions and overall impacts.
11:00 am: Modern V. Historic Use: Monitoring
Archaeological Sites at Seminole Ranch Conservation Area, SJRWMD
Emma Dietrich, FPAN East Central and Graham Williams, St. Johns Water Management District
The St. Johns River
Water Management District owns or manages approximately 782,033 acres of land,
acquired for the purposes of water management, water supply, and the
conservation and protection of water resources. Seminole Ranch
Conservation Area is one such District-owned property
and is comprised of over 29,545 acres in east central Florida along the St.
Johns River, an area known for its rich history and abundance of important
cultural resource sites. FPAN’s East
Central and Northeast Regional Staff worked with St. Johns Water Management District Staff to monitor known sites in Seminole Ranch Conservation Area during
the pandemic, a time where more and more people were seeking outdoor
activities. Although the sites are experiencing effects from climate change,
the main impacts on sites are the modern use and occupation. Many of the well-known mound sites in particular, continue to
be a magnet for human activity as they have been for thousands of years. This paper will examine the impacts of modern human
activity on archaeological sites and how monitoring can assist in understanding how sites are utilized today.
11:15 am: HMS in Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park
John Aspiolea, Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park, and Rachael Kangas, FPAN Southwest Region
The area encompassed by Charlotte Harbor Preserve State
Park contains over 100 cultural sites and evidence of thousands of years of
human life. The area has historically been well documented by archaeologists
and well-managed by State Park staff. This paper will discuss the HMS documentation
of some of these sites and insights into changes including increased saltwater
inundation and more frequent over wash at many sites. Further, the HMS site
visits led to a better understanding of changes in invasive and native plants
and animals, which has important management implications for the entire park
unit.
11:30 am: Questions
11:45 am: Discussion
12:00 pm: Lunch break
1:00 pm: Terrestrial Laser scanning as an Aid to Heritage Monitoring
Jeffery Robinson, University of West Florida
In contributing to a dire need for monitoring and documenting historic sites at risk from sea-level rise, research at the University of West Florida is combining the use of terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) and photogrammetric data. This paper will explore whether the combination of these data capture methods can be used to monitor erosive changes to at-risk historic sites and if they can be used to assess the impact of erosive changes on the archaeological record over time. To answer these questions, researchers are making multiple visits to three notable archaeological sites in Northwest Florida over the course of a year.
1:15 pm: The Sinking of the Sacred: North Carolina’s Coastal Historic Cemetery Survey to Address Heritage Loss, Descendant Communities, and Cemetery Preservation
Melissa Timo, Mary Beth Fitts, Allyson Ropp, and Alexis Anderson, North Carolina Office of State Archaeology
The Coastal Historic Cemetery Survey Project undertaken by the NC Office of State Archaeology (OSA) is designed to identify, document, and assess the condition of historical cemeteries on state lands in nine coastal NC counties impacted by 2018’s Hurricanes Florence and Michael. In addition to documenting past damage and predicting future environmental threats, this survey will update existing records and identify undocumented cemeteries. Particular attention will be paid to recording cemeteries traditionally associated with African American communities (both enslaved and free), which are underrepresented in state records. This paper will show how OSA is using this broader project as a chance to involve local African American descendant communities, engage HBCU students, and enhance the knowledge, appreciation, and support of coastal African American communities and their historic cemeteries.
1:30 pm: Where We Be: Gullah/Geechee Land and Sea
Representative Glenda Simmons- Jenkins, Gullah/Geechee Nation
For many years the Gullah Geechee Nation Florida representative and FPAN staff have held ongoing conversations about heritage, risk, and documentation of sites. Conversations have been held at workshops, site visits, Queen Quet's participation in the St. Augustine Keeping History Above Water conference, and most recently on Zoom. This presentation will focus on the collaboration between individuals and the Nation in protecting and sustaining Gullah Geechee heritage at risk.
2:00 pm: An Archaeologist Among Biologists: An
Integrative Approach to Coastal Heritage Between Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor
Uzi Baram, New College of Florida
Following the lead of the
Seminole Tribe of Florida in integrating what is separately known as cultural
and natural resources, faculty at New College of Florida partnered with Marie
Selby Botanical Gardens and De Soto National Memorial for a pilot project in January 2021 to address the implications of rising sea levels across Sarasota/Manatee, Florida. The coastal region is between Tampa Bay and
Charlotte Harbor, and it is the in-between aspect that makes for challenges and
opportunities. Building from Tidally United’s 2018 summit in Sarasota, the
larger community-based initiative is experimenting with collaborations to
advance material preservation in the region and beyond.
2:15 pm: Questions
2:30 pm: Break
2:40 pm: Leveling with Your Resources
Jenny Wolfe, Historic Preservation Officer, City of St.
Augustine
Florida’s historic neighborhoods and urban centers are
essential threads of community heritage that are vulnerable to flooding and
increasing sea level rise. Adapting to
these threats requires community engagement, historic resource management,
prioritization and policy action, and funding sources. Resilient Heritage in the Nation’s Oldest
City is a City of St. Augustine initiative that focuses on these tools for
policy makers and historic property owners to help them understand the risks
and leverage resources for mitigation.
2:55 pm: From Heritage Monitoring to Social Media: Digital Engagement and HMS Florida
Nicole Grinnan, FPAN Northwest Region, Mike Thomin, FPAN Coordinating Center
With the introduction of new challenges to working with volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic, FPAN Coordinating Center and Northwest Region staff adapted digital outreach strategies to engage community stakeholders in HMS Florida monitoring missions. These strategies focused on the creation of highly visual social media content. This paper examines some of the challenges of using social media to highlight archaeological sites, as well as the myriad benefits of using digital platforms to draw attention to local heritage resources and the threats they face.
3:10 pm: The North American Heritage At Risk Project
Meg Gaillard, South Carolina Division of Natural Resources
The North American Heritage at Risk (NAHAR) Project began in 2020 in order to develop a standardized system of
identifying, monitoring, documenting and triaging at-risk cultural sites prior to loss along the I-95 corridor. Approximately 11,109 cultural resources located on the southeastern Atlantic coastline are at risk due to erosion from storm surge and rising sea levels with just a1 m increase in sea level (Anderson et al. 2017). In addition to the known
risks, southeastern coastlines are experiencing sea level rise six times higher than the global average (Valle-Levinson et al.
2017:7878), increasing the urgency to address this looming threat. The NAHAR Project, building from models established by global organizations
like SCAPE and with predictive models from SLAMM/MEM, will establish a standardized identification, monitoring
and documentation protocol in collaboration with resource stakeholders. Once this protocol is established, citizen scientists, residents and tourists alike, will
be asked to join professional archaeologists in their efforts. The purpose of this project is to encourage non-specialists to
identify at-risk resources and continue to revisit those sites to document the rate and type of site erosion and destruction.
3:25 pm: Questions
3:40 pm: Discussion
3:55 pm: Closing and evaluation
