Letters A Tour Of South Florida’s History I took a self-guided tour of Florida’s south gulf coast this winter based on Susan Ladika’s excellent article in the Summer 2014 issue. (See “On The Trail Of Florida’s Indian Heritage,” page 25.) My main interests were Calusa history and culture. My favorite stops were the Calusa Heritage Trail on Pine Island and the Southwest Florida Museum of History in Fort Myers. The trail is well laid out with signs in all the right places and well informed guides who answered all my questions. The museum presents south Florida history in a complete and understandable way. I capped off my tour by going to the Miami Circle. If you go to the building immediately north of the circle and look out the window on the fifth floor you can see it on your left near the top of large empty space that looks like a construction site, but is the site and an archaeological dig. I was lucky enough to be there at a slow time and the archaeologist who was there took the time to tell me that this was the place where the Tequesta people established a village near the ceremonial circle. Thank you for teaching me more about Native American cultures. Walter Holden Skokie, Illinois
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Editor’s Corner There once was a time when archaeology consisted primarily of digging things up. But that’s certainly no longer the case. Many archaeological projects are now complex, multidisciplinary, highly technical endeavors. In addition to excavation, any given project might also feature such components as ancient DNA analysis, LiDAR mapping, thermoluminescence dating, one or more forms of remote sensing, and virtual recreations of ancient artifacts, landscapes, and events. This brings us to the matter of trying to answer one of American archaeology’s enduring questions:Why did the Anasazi leave their homeland in the late 13th century, and where did they go? Since 2001, Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler and various colleagues have brought a wide range of expertise to bear in search of answers. (See “Grappling With A Great Mystery,” page 32.) Under the auspices of Kohler’s Village Ecodynamics Project (VEP), archaeologists, geologists, hydrologists, geographers, computer scientists, and economists from institutions in the U.S. and Canada have joined forces in an attempt to solve this mystery. Perhaps the most salient aspect of the VEP is its use of computer simulations that, informed by the archaeological record, paleoclimate information, and other data, create virtual Anasazi families that inhabit an ancient landscape. The point of this is to observe how the virtual people respond to such real-world issues as precipitation, resource abundance or scarcity, and (perhaps most challenging) other virtual people.This information can help archaeologists get into the minds of the Anasazi, revealing why these ancient people did what they did. And, as a sign of just how much archaeology has changed, while working on the VEP Kohler didn’t so much as touch a shovel.
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