BRADENTON – A discovery of what people once used as a source of water is unearthed in Manatee County.
It’s a month-long mission New College anthropologists took on after discovering the site would become a Bradenton Riverwalk. The excavations recover insights from the area by the Manatee Mineral Spring in Bradenton.
Uzi Baram, Professor of Anthropology at New College of Florida, says they want to reveal the stories of people who once lived here, specifically the Angola community of the 19th century.
They’ve discovered features big and small, from a well, to marbles and a tobacco pipe, to even dog bones in a wooden box.
Project director, Sherry Skevis, says it’s gratifying find evidence that not only reveals life, but emotion.
“That’s something that says something about the people and what they cared about,” said Sherry Skevis. “That, it was not just about growing crops or having livestock, but they had pets. They had an animal that was very important to them.”
Over the next few months, the team of archaeologist plan to analyze all the features they recovered. And once the reports are complete… the artifacts will be placed at the Reflections of Manatee Museum.
