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Expert to talk about Florida archaeologist

By Sandee Davies
Published December 10, 2006

As late as the 1890s, large sections of southwest Florida were undeveloped, some uncharted.

Frank Hamilton Cushing made it his life's work to explore the remains of the American Indian tribes that came before. His work pioneered many archaeological methods and thinking, becoming a forerunner of anthropologists by tying anthropology to archaeology.

Phyllis Kolianos has written many books about Cushing and will talk about his work Thursday at the Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center.

Her works include The Florida Journals of Frank Hamilton Cushing and The Lost Manuscript of Frank Hamilton Cushing.

Kolianos traveled to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., to search through Cushing's writings in an attempt to relocate an excavation site in Tarpon Springs. Her inquiries led to her transcribing journals that Cushing's family had recently donated to the museum.

Clues in the journals led her to a manuscript that was buried for more than a century in the Smithsonian's archives. Archaeologists had been searching for the manuscript since the 1950s.

"He has new things on his maps and in his observations that no one knew about," Kolianos said. "The lost manuscripts reveal new information about sites all along the Florida coast that is now available to archaeologists in future digs."

Cushing's early life was spent studying the Indian tribes of the Southwest, but in his later years he turned his attention to Florida, excavating sites from Tarpon Springs to Marco Island.

His work focused on the people and the geographical features and sea currents that he felt demonstrated the connection of cultures throughout the Caribbean, Florida and the southern United States in a "great arc of civilization."

[Last modified December 10, 2006, 08:30:24]