- MIAMI (Reuters) - Scientific tests on charcoal found in the mysterious
Miami Circle, a dusty Indian relic at the heart of a fierce political battle,
suggest that the site was occupied by humans at least 2,000 years ago,
archaeologists said Tuesday.
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- The tests were the first done on artifacts
found at the site and the first scientific indicator of the age of the
nondescript 38-foot circle. It was found last summer on a downtown plot
of land where a developer wants to erect a $100 million condominium.
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- The Miami Circle - actually a series
of basins and holes hacked into the limestone bedrock on one of Miami's
priciest parcels of real estate " has become the focus of a war between
city and county governments, between developers and preservationists.
-
- Native American groups have adopted the
circle as an illustration of America,s ill treatment of ancient sacred
sites. The circle, at the mouth of the Miami River, is believed to be the
foundation of a ceremonial lodge constructed by the indigenous Tequesta
tribe before it vanished in the decades after European occupation of Florida.
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- The Miami-Dade County Commission on Feb.
18 voted to attempt to buy the 2.3-acre parcel of land and obtained a court
order preventing construction at the site. The court order came over bitter
opposition from the city of Miami, which stands to lose millions of dollars
in tax revenue if the condominium is not built.
-
- The Florida cabinet, made up of the governor
and other executive branch leaders, Tuesday heard pleas to save the circle
and approved a study to determine if the state should buy the land.
-
- "In this century there has been
a lot of things taken away from the people," Paul Eagle Heart, an
Apache Comanche, told the cabinet. "We're going into the new millennium,
the new century. Don't take something away that could carry on into the
next century."
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- Carbon-dating tests were completed on
two small bits of charcoal, probably created by Tequesta fires, said John
Ricisak, a Miami-Dade County historic preservation specialist.
-
- The tests showed that a sample found
in one of the basins that form the circle was 1,800 to 2,100 years old,
Ricisak said. A charcoal sample found in the earth that covered the circle
was 1,850 to 1,990 years old.
-
- "It tells us that the occupation
of the site ... goes back probably 2,000 years," Ricisak said. "It
does not come anywhere near proving that the circle itself may also be
that old."
-
- Experts had previously said the circle
could be 500 to 800 years old.
-
- Carbon dating measures the amount of
carbon-14, a slightly radioactive isotope of carbon found in all organic
matter, remaining in ancient material. It enables scientists to determine
the age of fossils and other artifacts by comparing the test results to
an international standard.
-
- Ricisak said testing was to be done on
other Circle artifacts, including bone, shell and the skeleton of a shark.
But it was unclear whether it would be possible to test the limestone bedrock
into which the formation is carved.
-
- Scientists also were trying to determine
the origin of two basalt ax heads found at the site.
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- Basalt is a rock of volcanic origin that
does not occur naturally in Florida. The two nearest possible sources are
the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America and the highlands of
Guatemala, scientists said.
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