Archeology Festival brings the past into the present

Florida Archeology Month was celebrated in high style at the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve's third annual Southwest Florida History & Archeology Festival on Saturday. Visitors were treated to a number of activities, all designed to engage their brains and ensure they left with a better understanding of how Collier County came to be.

Photo by Lindsey Kaiser, Eagle staff
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According to Rookery Bay Board Member Pat Carroll, pioneer women considered dutch ovens a luxury. Carroll and other volunteers cooked apple pie, peach cobbler and biscuits for guests using the period method.

"We hope that visitors to the festival will gain a better understanding of the value of our estuaries by learning how important these areas have been to human existence for thousands of years," said research interpreter Renee Wilson.

The event is sponsored by many state offices and private organizations. Florida has celebrated its rich archeological and historical past for 14 years by designating March the Florida Archeology Month. Events all over the state celebrate the Florida's history and prehistory, which stretches back more than 12,000 years. The theme of this year's celebration, Florida Waterways ... Paddling through The Past, is the significance of marine craft, such as dugout canoes, to the state's early inhabitants.

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Volunteer Dick Workman demonstrated how Calusa Indians and pioneer women wove palm leaves for clothing. Calusa men, he said, used the woven fiber to build codpieces, and women living in settlements would sell the finished fronds to haberdashers for extra income. It's not a cerebral activity, he continued. "If you think about what you're trying to do, you mess up."

Rookery Bay's detectable human use goes back 3,000 years with the Calusa Indians who populated this area. Also, early settlers of the area include those people who lived along the Henderson Creek waterway, which was known as the Little Marco settlement. According to Wilson, people were attracted to the area because the richness of the estuary and used the waterways for transportation before there were roads built for cars.

The staff at Rookery Bay provided guests with exhibits showcasing pioneer and Calusa living, guided tours to the Little Marco Settlement shell mound sites, and a presentation by archeologist Randolph Widmer, an expert on the history of Rookery Bay.

Rookery Bay's canoe exhibit emphasizes the marine craft theme of this year's events.

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Taylor Caudill, 9, and Dalton Farmer, 10, occupied themselves braiding palm fibers for necklaces.

"One of the exhibits in the Environmental Learning Center (second floor) focuses on the past and present use of watercraft. We have a sculpted an indigenous person fishing from a dugout canoe and also a young woman bird watching from a modern kayak, both hanging from the ceiling," Wilson said. "Also, the guided walks will address the use of the waterways for transportation. Finally, we are offering a special Paddle Into the Past kayak trip at the end of the festival."

Melanie Farmer and Gretchen Doty brought their children to the event so they all could have a better understanding of Florida history.

"We like it here," Farmer said. "We thought it would be near to come. We like the history of Florida."