An ancient Native American hunting and fishing site on the Anhinga Trail lies just inside the Everglades National Park near Homestead. But it is underwater.
For thousands of years, the site was used by Florida Natives to hunt marine animals and catch fish in the lush, marshy environment. Over the millennia, weapons and tools dropped in the water accumulated in the peat at the bottom of the slough until discovered in 1968.
The peat preserved unusual bone and wooden artifacts that tell the story of the people who made them and how they used the Everglades. Included are sharpened bone points for hunting aquatic animals and a lot of fishing gear, such as two or three-part fishhooks. The site was a hunting and fishing camp, not a village, that was used as early as 3,000 BC and as late as 700 years ago.
The Anhinga site is located along a nice boardwalk above the wetland that is full of wildlife, and there are artifacts on display in an exhibit about the site in the Royal Palm Visitor Center.
Unearthing Florida is a project of WUWF Public Media, the Florida Public Archaeology Network(FPAN), and its founder, Dr. Judith Bense, since 1998. FPAN's Michael Thomin is a contributor to the program. WUWF's Sandra Averhart is the executive producer.
