Drama Of Discovery Draws Amateur Archaeologists, Says UF Researcher

April 26, 1996

GAINESVILLE—Learning something new about something old explains part of archaeology’s lure to legions of amateurs who follow their passion despite bug bites, bad food and nonexistent plumbing, says a University of Florida anthropologist.

“There is nothing quite like holding a 10,000-year-old stone spearhead in your hand and trying to recreate why it was made and how it was used,” said Barbara Purdy, a UF anthropology professor emeritus and author of the new book “How to do Archaeology the Right Way.” “Although a painstaking science, archaeology is also a very human science because it connects us to the people of the past.”

Yet the drama of discovery is rare, compared to the drudgery of the work and occupational hazards of field sites that are sometimes remote and primitive, she said.

Purdy encounters many people who say they have always wanted to be archaeologists. “Most of the time archaeology is not exciting at all,” she said. “It is dirty, tedious, underfunded work that carries the danger of bug bites, snake bites, bad weather, bad food, and in some cases, bad company.”

Florida is a bonanza to archaeologists because its rich, water-saturated peat bogs beautifully preserve ancient wood carvings, whole hickory nuts and squash seeds, which give valuable dietary clues. Even human brain tissue is sometimes found preserved, she said.

“Archaeologists around the world are simply amazed at the information we have in Florida,” Purdy said. “One wonders why everybody gets so excited about the Ice Man of the Alps — one man with a few tools — when we have unbelievably spectacular sites in Florida like Windover, where brain tissue was found oozing out of human crania.”

Purdy believes one reason the Ice Man gets more respect than Florida’s antiquities is that Americans of European descent consider the Ice Man their ancestor, in contrast to the Native Americans who lived here thousands of years ago.

People are similarly more impressed with archaeological finds from other parts of the world. “Whenever there is a traveling exhibit like King Tut or gold masks from China, literally millions of people try to see them,” Purdy said. “But the skills involved in fashioning some of the materials we have in Florida are equally as great as the skills needed to fashion gold or silver or stone.”

The springs are one feature of Florida’s natural environment that draws increasing numbers of amateurs to archaeology, be it to search for rare Paleo-Indian artifacts, treasures from 17th-century shipwrecks or fossilized remains of Pleistocene mammals, Purdy said. By identifying and reporting these underwater sites to professional archaeologists, amateurs perform a valuable service for professional archaeologists, many of whom do not dive.

Amateur and professional archaeologists have maintained a love-hate relationship over the years because, while amateurs can help the professionals, they can also foul up scientific research when they dig improperly and plunder, Purdy said.

“Since professionals go about their work very systematically, they don’t have time to open up as much territory and are less likely to find pristine, beautiful pieces,” she said. “That’s why all the real goodies are in the hands of amateurs.”

One of the most common mistakes amateurs make is not collecting everything they find at a site. “They’ll take only the spearheads, or the pottery bowls, or maybe a human skull and put it on their mantle,” Purdy said.

If they find stone spearheads with pottery sherds, they take only the spearheads because the pots are not intact, she said.

“How often are you going to find a whole pot?” Purdy said. “Archaeologists use the sherds to date and interpret the people’s way of life. Because the time period is often in limbo, these pieces of pottery are important.”

Pottery indicates that a site is younger than 4,000 years because ceramics did not exist in Florida before then, she explained.

Despite some bad examples, many amateurs yearn to learn proper techniques, often joining local archaeology groups to do so, Purdy said. And in a rapidly growing state like Florida, the biggest future threat to the state’s archaeological heritage comes not from the amateurs, but from development, she said.