Faculty researchers and archaeology students at the University of West Florida have uncovered artifacts linked to multiple pre-Columbian Native American cultures during a recent archaeological survey on UWF’s Pensacola campus.

The survey, conducted by the UWF Archaeology Institute, relocated a previously documented archaeological site first discovered on campus in 1989. Through systematic shovel test excavations, faculty and students also recovered ceramics associated with at least two pre-Columbian Native American cultures. The oldest artifacts appear to be linked to the Weeden Island culture of the Woodland period, likely dating between A.D. 600 and 900. Additional ceramics date to the middle-to-late Mississippian period, approximately A.D. 1250 to 1600. 

“The condition of the site is significant due in part to the long history of development of our campus,” said Ramie Gougeon, director of the Archaeology Institute. “It is not common to find a site this intact. I am particularly excited to learn more about the different activities past peoples engaged in at this location.” 

The survey is part of the University’s preparation for infrastructure improvements associated with the construction of the new Darrell Gooden Stadium. The work ensures compliance with state regulations governing ground-disturbing activities on state-owned land and helps protect cultural and historical resources.

Under Florida law, projects involving ground disturbance must be reviewed by the Division of Historical Resources within the Florida Department of State to determine whether archaeological or historic resources could be affected. After reviewing the stadium infrastructure plans, the division determined that an archaeological survey was required before construction could proceed. 

“The survey demonstrates UWF’s commitment to responsible development and cultural resource preservation,” Gougeon said. “While our findings and follow-up work affect the timing of some activities, the investigation of this archaeological site will not negatively impact the current stadium infrastructure plans.” 

In addition to supporting responsible development, the project provides valuable experiential learning opportunities for students in UWF’s anthropology and archaeology programs. Students participate directly in fieldwork by conducting shovel tests, screening soil for artifacts and documenting findings, gaining hands-on experience in the cultural resource management practices used by professional archaeologists.

“Archaeology is a hands-on profession, so any chance that we can give our students to have additional time working in the field is valuable,” Jennifer Melcher, senior faculty research associate with the UWF Archaeology Institute. “Having projects right here on campus means they can easily join us after classes and add that experience to their resumes.”

UWF archaeologists have been identifying and studying archaeological sites on campus since the late 1980s, uncovering evidence of thousands of years of human activity in the region. The current survey continues that long-standing research tradition while ensuring that cultural resources are properly documented and protected as the University grows.

Additional archaeological survey projects on campus are anticipated to continue throughout the spring.

For more information about the UWF Archaeology Institute, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

A multi-organizational research team led by the UWF Archaeology Institute’s assistant director, Nicole Grinnan, has been awarded the 2026 Mark E. Mack Community Engagement award from the Society for Historical Archaeology. This prestigious international award recognizes the Archaeology Institute’s research in Apalachicola, Florida, for exhibiting “outstanding best practices in community collaboration, engagement and outreach in their historical archaeology and heritage preservation work.”

“This project is a perfect example of UWF’s commitment to collaborative research with – and about – our communities,” said Dr. David Earle, dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. “Understanding our unique and shared heritage helps us better understand who we are and where we come from. This award is well deserved, and the University couldn’t be prouder of the team and their efforts.”

Grinnan’s research, entitled “People of the Apalachicola System: Exploring Cultural Heritage as a Vector for Ecosystem Planning, Management and Adaptation,” not only emphasized traditional archaeological research, but also actively integrated the local community at each phase of the research process. This included working with local government representatives of the City of Apalachicola, organizations in Apalachicola, and a variety of state and federal land management agencies in Franklin County. With community workshops, quarterly check-ins and monthly newsletters, the project was shaped to align with the community’s values and needs.

With the intention of preserving Florida’s unique coastal heritage, researchers mapped coastlines and forecasted potential coastal transformation within Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, aiming to deepen the understanding of how past and present communities value and utilize their landscape against the backdrop of environmental change.

“Our research team’s hope from the beginning was that this work would serve as a starting point – not an endpoint,” Grinnan said. “Recognition from the Society for Historical Archaeology reinforces the idea that, when communities are partners in research, heritage preservation becomes more meaningful and better positioned to flourish. We look forward to returning to Apalachicola to continue working alongside our partners to document and share its incredible stories.”

This research was funded by the NOAA National Estuarine Research Reserve System’s Science Collaborative and was in collaboration with the Florida Public Archaeology Network, the UWF Department of Anthropology, the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Northwest Florida Maritime Landscape Alliance for Preservation, East Tennessee State University and the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

For more information about UWF’s Archaeology Institute, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

The University of West Florida’s College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities is proud to announce this year’s Gulf Coast Culture Series theme: Pensacola Noir. The Gulf Coast Culture Series is an evolution of the longstanding Experience UWF Downtown Lecture Series. Launched in 2024, GCC expands beyond lectures to celebrate the rich cultural tapestry of the U.S. Gulf Coast Region through events linked by yearly themes.

This year’s GCC theme, Pensacola Noir, is inspired by gritty crime fiction and film noir traditions and explores history, art and Southern Gothic storytelling through a mix of conversations, tours and lectures. By weaving together these themes, the series brings timely and thought-provoking conversations into the public sphere while highlighting the creative depth of the Gulf Coast region.

“There is a deep history in literature, film and art of the Southern United States as a site of mystery, the gothic and crime,” said Dr. David M. Earle, professor and dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. “Florida is no exception, and this series will rely upon our local history and talent to explore such Noir-ish dynamics.”

This year’s programming offers distinctive experiences that blend scholarship with cultural storytelling in ways not typically available to the public. From a roundtable with three of Pensacola’s most prominent crime writers and a twilight cemetery tour exploring the shadowed corners of the city’s past, to a discussion on how “Murder, She Wrote” shaped pop culture’s fascination with forensic science and a lecture on Southern Gothic photography by a nationally recognized curator, each event offers a unique lens on how stories of crime, memory and art shape our understanding of place and identity.

A few of the events planned for the upcoming year, which are free and open for the public to attend, include:

• Sept. 17, 2025 – Pensacola Crime Writers Roundtable: Three of Pensacola’s leading crime writers – Mike Papantonio, author of “Middleman”; Rick Outzen, author of “City of Grudges”; and Corbett Davis Jr., author of “Dead Man’s Fingers” – will come together for a dynamic roundtable discussion at the Museum of Commerce. Each author will share insights into their work, inspirations and how the noir tradition influences Gulf Coast storytelling, followed by a Q&A and book signing. The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m., followed by speakers at 6 p.m, the Q&A at 7 p.m. and book signing at 7:30 p.m.
• Oct. 18, 2025 – Stories in Stone: A Twilight Walking Tour of St. Michael’s Cemetery: Hosted in partnership with the Florida Public Archaeology Network, the UWF Archaeology Institute and the UWF Department of Anthropology, this twilight program invites guests to explore the shadowed corners of Pensacola’s past. Through guided walking tours of St. Michael’s Cemetery, participants will encounter the complex history of the city and reflect on how the cemetery serves as both a resting place and a keeper of memory. The tours will highlight the lives, professions and stories of those who shaped the community across centuries while also examining the challenges of preservation and the cultural significance of remembrance. With groups limited to 15 and scheduled every half hour (first tour at 4:30 p.m., last at 6 p.m.), the experience offers an intimate and thought-provoking evening as the sun sets over one of Pensacola’s most historic sites. Registration will be required closer to the date of the event at uwf.edu/gulfcoastculture.
• Nov. 13, 2025 – Murder She Investigates: Allysha Winburn & Cate Bird: In this unique program, Dr. Allysha Winburn, a biological anthropologist specializing in forensic and bioarchaeological research, and Dr. Cate Bird, missing persons & forensic manager for the International Committee of the Red Cross (United States & Canada), will examine the lasting cultural impact of the television series “Murder, She Wrote.” The discussion will explore how the show shaped public fascination with forensic evidence and influenced popular understandings of crime solving. Drawing on their own expertise, Winburn and Bird will connect the fictional world of Jessica Fletcher to the realities of forensic anthropology, investigative work and human rights, revealing how cultural narratives intersect with science and justice. A reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Museum of Commerce, and the discussion will run from 6 – 8 p.m.
• Jan. 29, 2026 – Richard McCabe on Southern Gothic Photography: Renowned curator, photographer and writer Richard McCabe will speak at the Pensacola Museum of Art. McCabe, curator of photography at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans since 2010, examines how Southern Gothic traditions of mystery, melancholy and beauty are captured through photography. A reception will begin at 5:30 p.m., the speaker will go on at 6 p.m., and a Q&A will follow at 7:30 p.m.

The Gulf Coast Culture Series underscores the college’s mission to enrich, educate and connect the community by celebrating the traditions, stories and creative expressions that make the Gulf Coast extraordinary. Through immersive programming, GCC fosters curiosity, creativity, communication and compassion, bringing the liberal arts to life in new and impactful ways.

For more information on the Gulf Coast Culture Series, visit uwf.edu/gulfcoastculture.

Phoenix Farnham, a graduate student in the University of West Florida’s Department of Anthropology, was selected for a paid internship with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, a highly competitive program focused on forensic anthropology. Farnham was one of only six students nationwide chosen for this prestigious opportunity out of a pool of 135 applicants. The internship is funded by the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research through partnership with DPAA. 

“This really speaks highly of Phoenix’s talent as well as the commitment of Dr. Allysha Winburn and the rest of our Anthropology faculty,” said Dr. David Earle, dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. “This is a perfect example of how we train students for competitive professions.”

The internship took place at the DPAA’s laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, where Farnham spent the summer collecting data for her master’s thesis on the resolution of commingling — the intermixing of human remains. Farnham’s research contributed to the agency’s ongoing mission of recovering and identifying fallen U.S. service members from past conflicts.

Farnham was able to sharpen several skills, such as interpreting skeletal trauma and working with large, commingled assemblages, exploring methods to help with the resolution of difficult cases. She also gained experience with new skills such as evidence intake, DNA sampling, X-ray analyses and photography. Professionals from outside of the discipline, such as historians, life-support investigators, odontologists and case coordinators, were brought in to help the interns understand how their knowledge, alongside anthropology, helps the mission come together.

“I feel so lucky to have participated in this internship and contributed to the DPAA mission,” Farnham said. “The experience was unique to each intern, allowing me to blend my interests with the goals of the lab. Because of this, my mentors and I had the ability to curate my daily tasks and interact with individuals that broadened my knowledge of forensic anthropology, while simultaneously gaining exposure to working in an accredited laboratory and collaborating with a variety of individuals.”

Prior to this internship, Farnham had already contributed to the DPAA mission. In 2023, she was part of a team of undergraduate and graduate students that excavated the site of a World War II bomber crash in Germany. Their work led to the identification of First Lieutenant Wylie W. Leverett, who was lost during a bombing mission in 1944. This success underscores the vital role that Farnham and other forensic anthropologists play in bringing closure to families of fallen soldiers.

Farnham’s thesis will explore challenges faced by forensic anthropologists when resolving commingling in cases of mass disasters and military conflicts. Her internship provided invaluable hands-on experience, enhancing her understanding of forensic science and contributing to her planned career in the field of forensic anthropology.

“It is difficult to put into words what this opportunity has meant to me, but simply put, I feel incredibly blessed,” Farnham said. “The DPAA’s mission is quite powerful, and the idea of helping these families by accounting for the remains of their loved ones resonates deeply with me.”

In recognition of her contributions, Farnham was presented with a challenge coin – a military tradition that recognizes outstanding achievement and is a token of respect. In the military and government-service communities, receiving a challenge coin is considered a high honor.

“The DPAA is one of our discipline’s flagship institutions,” said Dr. Allysha Winburn, associate professor of anthropology. “Generations of forensic anthropologists have learned their trade while contributing to this important mission. I couldn’t be prouder of the fact that Phoenix is now among them, and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of the honor.”

The DPAA is the world’s largest forensic anthropology laboratory and works to identify the remains of U.S. service members who have died in past conflicts. This internship program marks a significant step for the Department of Defense, as it is the first time in the agency’s history that paid internships have been offered to students.

Farnham’s selection highlights UWF’s commitment to workforce readiness and the significant contributions of its students to national and international efforts in forensic anthropology. As Farnham noted, “There aren’t enough thanks in the world for my academic advisor, Dr. Allysha Winburn. Her integrity and ethics are inspiring, as well as being a brilliant mentor. She has been amazing at helping me work to visualize and achieve my academic and professional goals.”

For more information on UWF’s Department of Anthropology and its research initiatives, visit uwf.edu/anthropology.

Two University of West Florida archaeologists have transformed their passion for public outreach and historical storytelling into a new children’s book inspired by real archaeological discoveries made off the Florida coast. “Luna the Cat,” follows a feline protagonist on board a Spanish ship in the 1500s and is based on a real-life cat whose remains were uncovered at the site of the 1559 Emanuel Point shipwrecks excavated by UWF archaeologists.

Michael Thomin, assistant director of education and interpretation for the Florida Public Archaeology Network, and Nicole Grinnan, assistant director of the University of West Florida’s Archaeology Institute, decided to co-author the book after realizing that most archaeology books didn’t speak to the K-12 students in their children’s archaeology programs in the way they desired.

“Most titles were too focused on the archaeological process and lacked the heart of what makes a story engaging and relatable for kids,” Thomin said.

When Thomin and Grinnan learned of the discovery of cat bones found during excavations of the Emanuel Point I and Emanuel Point II shipwrecks — remnants of Tristán de Luna’s 1559 Spanish colonization attempt near present-day Pensacola – they knew they had a perfect new lens through which to write their own children’s book.

“By telling history through the eyes of an animal, we could connect with children in a way that felt emotionally compelling and accessible,” Grinnan said.

Although “Luna the Cat” is a fictional tale, its historical framework is grounded in real research from UWF’s Archaeology Institute and Department of Anthropology.

“All the major events in the book are based on real discoveries,” the authors explained. “This was only possible because of the extensive research conducted by faculty and students at the University of West Florida. The work of Dr. Roger Smith, Dr. John Worth and Dr. John Bratten, in particular, was instrumental in reconstructing the story of the 1559 settlement.”

Grinnan actually excavated portions of the shipwreck during her graduate work at UWF.

At its core, “Luna the Cat” introduces young readers to one of North America’s earliest colonial settlement attempts – decades before Jamestown in Virginia and years before St. Augustine on Florida’s Atlantic coast.

“This is more than just a story about a cat,” they said. “At its heart, the book is about overcoming fear, building resilience and discovering inner strength in the face of adversity. We hope it sparks curiosity about the past and shows kids that archaeology is not just about digging — it’s about discovering human and animal stories that still matter today.”

Released in July 2025, the book has already earned praise from educators, parents and young readers alike.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Thomin and Grinnan said. “Kids have really connected with Luna’s emotional journey, and we were thrilled to see it ranked No. 1 for New Releases in Children’s U.S. State and Local History Books on Amazon.”

Fans of “Luna the Cat” will be excited to know that this is just the first book in the “Tales from the Trowel” series. Each book will be told from the perspective of a different animal whose remains were found during excavations at archaeological sites across Florida. Inspired by real archaeological discoveries, every book is grounded in authentic research but brought to life through imaginative, character-driven storytelling.

While Luna’s story is complete for now, the second book in the series is already in development. Co-authored by Thomin and UWF alumna Katherine Sims, the next installment will follow a donkey who helps build the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine during the 1600s. That title is expected to be released later this year.

“Luna the Cat” is currently available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover and Kindle formats. Plans are underway to distribute the book through museum stores, libraries and independent bookstores. The authors are also scheduling signings at local libraries, museums and bookstores, and they plan to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Pensacola Humane Society — a cause close to their hearts.

“We may have written the book, but it stands on the shoulders of years of dedicated research and discovery right here at UWF,” Thomin and Grinnan said. “Our hope is that books like ‘Luna the Cat’ will not only spark a passion for history and archaeology in young readers but also help inspire the next generation of heritage stewards.”

To learn more about the Archaeology Institute at UWF, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

To learn more about the Florida Public Archaeology Network, visit uwf.edu/fpan.

The University of West Florida College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities announces “After Hours with the Artist: Sunken Series,” a compelling cross-disciplinary collaboration between the Florida Public Archaeology Network and The Art Gallery at UWF that blends art, archaeology and public engagement in a novel way. This after-hours event highlights the work of artist Jenna Zydlo, whose Sunken Series exhibit reimagines maritime archaeology through intricately crafted ceramics inspired by a fictional 17th-18th century Spanish shipwreck.

The event will take place on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Destination Archaeology Resource Center in downtown Pensacola. The community is invited to come meet the artist, experience her work up close, and reflect on the fragile beauty of what time leaves behind. This event is free and open to the public.

“Throughout my life, I have been driven by a deep curiosity about the world and a sense of adventure. My passion for history fuels my interest and respect for past cultures, their stories, and the enduring legacies they’ve left behind,” Zydlo said. “Sunken is inspired by a hypothetical 17th – 18th century Spanish shipwreck site. The ceramics, formed and textured to resemble encrusted relics, embody the human imprint on the world and the ocean’s ability to reclaim and reshape.”

A UWF graduate with degrees in anthropology and studio art, Zydlo also played on the Argo volleyball team and recently completed her first season as a professional athlete overseas. Her multidisciplinary background and global perspective brings unique depth to the Sunken Series exhibit, which will run through the end of August.

“We’re excited to partner with The Art Gallery to showcase Jenna’s artwork,” said Mike Thomin, director of education and interpretation, Florida Public Archaeology Network. “The temporary exhibit space at the Destination Archaeology Resource Center provides UWF students with a unique opportunity to feature their research and creative work. It’s not only a platform for sharing their scholarship with the public, but also a valuable hands-on learning experience in exhibit design and fabrication.”

“Partnering with the Florida Public Archaeology Network to showcase this graduate work was a natural extension of our mission,” said Stasha Willis, director of The Art Gallery at UWF. “Jenna’s integration of anthropology and fine arts made FPAN an ideal collaborator to help amplify its impact.”

For more information on the UWF College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, visit uwf.edu/cassh.

For more information on the Florida Public Archaeology Network, visit uwf.edu/fpan.

For more information on The Art Gallery at UWF, visit uwf.edu/tag.

Dr. John Bratten, a University of West Florida professor of anthropology, has received national attention for a recently published article, titled “Exploring the Arrival of Domestic Cats in the Americas,” that suggests the earliest cats may have been treated as pets.

The article, published in “American Antiquity,” a peer-reviewed quarterly journal published on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology, focuses on feline remains uncovered from the Emanuel Point II shipwreck, part of the 1559 fleet led by Spanish explorer Tristán de Luna y Arellano and discovered in Pensacola Bay.

“This is the earliest cat to be archaeologically discovered in the present day United States,” Bratten said. “By reviewing other archaeological reports, we were able to trace the spread of cats in the Americas up to 1760. Their arrival and spread mirrors European settlement with the use of ships as transport.”

Through detailed isotopic analysis, the study reveals that the adult cat found on the ship likely had a diet rich in fish and domestic meats rather than rodents. These findings suggest that cats aboard early transatlantic voyages may have been viewed not only as pest controllers but also as valued companions that were cared for as pets.

The study’s implications extend beyond the fate of one cat — it provides a rare glimpse into shipboard life during one of the earliest European colonization efforts in the New World.

“The response to the article in the anthropology community and beyond has been exciting,” Bratten added. “Undoubtedly, this is related to the fact that one in every three households in the United States shares their space with a cat today.”

Bratten co-authored this article with Martin H. Welker, associate professor of anthropology and associate curator of zooarchaeology at the University of Arizona, and Eric Guiry, honorary research fellow in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester.

To learn more about the UWF anthropology program, visit uwf.edu/anthropology.

A historic 1800s anchor which had been housed in the dark has been brought into the light, following the efforts of a campuswide leadership program. Faculty and staff of UWF’s 2024-25 LEAD, which stands for leadership, enhancement, activities and development, class worked with the Archaeology Institute to prepare the anchor for outdoor exhibition and create an exhibit space at the Archaeology Institute on UWF’s Pensacola campus. Previously, the anchor had been stored for curation in the University’s archaeological collections facilities after being sent to UWF for conservation in 2014. 

“It has been an honor working with my LEAD colleagues on this project,” said Christina L. Bolte, LEAD 2024-25 Project Lead. “All of us brought our enthusiasm and expertise to the table to benefit the UWF campus community and create a lasting space representative of our region’s history and ingenuity that everyone can enjoy.”

In 2013, the anchor was recovered from the Gulf by a contractor working for an offshore energy operator. Since the contractor did not notify the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, he was in violation of regulations protecting submerged archaeological resources. A compromise was reached between the bureau and the operator, who had the anchor on display next to his swimming pool in Texas. The anchor was transported to UWF for conservation and long-term study purposes. Students and faculty in the UWF anthropology department discovered markings which indicate that the anchor was manufactured by R. Flinn & Company in England, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. Robert Flinn of R. Flinn & Co. is mentioned in numerous historical sources as the first person to introduce iron chain cable to a ship, a significant development in maritime engineering that is standard on most ships today. 

At an anchor unveiling event on April 8, members of the LEAD 2024-25 class presented “Honoring the Past, Anchoring the Future” to UWF leadership as well as other faculty, staff and students in attendance. The presentation discussed the collaborative and multidisciplinary effort to display the anchor on the UWF campus, inspiring education and fostering community through our collective history. The LEAD class also collected hygiene products as donations for the Argo Pantry and created an ongoing UWF Library archive that showcases LEAD projects through the years and will chronicle program projects in the future.

LEAD 2024-25 is the 30th year of the LEAD program at UWF. Established in 1995 by current UWF President Martha Saunders, then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, LEAD has played a pivotal role in developing leaders at UWF and beyond. LEAD 2024-25 consists of two year-long faculty and staff programs – LEAD and LEAD2 – designed to help enhance their leadership skills, build relationships across campus, and develop strategies to help them grow as leaders and team members. LEAD2, an inaugural program of LEAD 2024-25, consists of UWF faculty and staff who are LEAD program alumni returning to continue developing their leadership skills and to provide guidance for the LEAD class project. The programs are sponsored by the Office of the Provost and directed by Dr. Athena du Pré, Distinguished University Professor.

“I am really proud of this year’s LEAD and LEAD2 class,” du Pré said. “Their passion and hard work have yielded an enduring legacy for UWF with the historic anchor display, and their donation of personal hygiene items will help students on a daily basis.”

The construction of the anchor’s exhibition platform wouldn’t have been possible without the generous contributions of labor and materials from the Morette Company, GHC and Bradley Masonry. The development of a LEAD 30 plaque to affix to the platform was graciously provided by the UWF Department of Mechanical Engineering. Conservation supplies, support and interpretive panelling were also provided by the Archaeology Institute, Department of Anthropology and the Heritage Roots Garden Project. 

For more information about UWF’s LEAD program, visit uwf.edu/lead. For more information about the UWF Archaeology Institute, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

The University of West Florida Archaeology Institute is leading the search for Fort Kirkland in Okaloosa County, Florida, thanks to a $250,000 grant from the Department of State. UWF students, faculty, archaeologists, local families and veterans with Task Force Dagger Special Operations Foundation are working together to study and memorialize the fort.

Following Florida’s transition to an American territory in 1821, families from neighboring southern states such as Alabama and Georgia began relocating to the region to establish new homes. At the time, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole communities still inhabited much of the area. As American settlers moved in, tensions escalated and ultimately led to violent conflict. These events culminated in what became known as the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Historical evidence suggests that the site of Fort Kirkland was likely destroyed during this conflict. Many descendants of those involved — both settlers and Indigenous communities — still live in Northwest Florida today. The study will detail the historical background of the fort, survey the land where the Fort Kirkland site is potentially located, and create a historical landmark to honor this history.

Jennifer Melcher’s Geographic Information Systems in Anthropology class spent several weeks of the class fitting historic maps to the modern landscape and digitizing roads and settlements to guide potential fieldwork locations. Students from the Anthropology program spent the latter part of their spring break immersed in the experiential learning opportunity, which involved conducting fieldwork and searching for the fort.

“This project allows students in my class to work with project data in real time,” Melcher, a faculty research associate with the UWF Archaeology Institute, said. “Normally, the class works with created practice scenarios; in this case, their work is creating important data for the search for Fort Kirkland.”

Students will spend the rest of the semester reviewing their findings and figuring out if more fieldwork is needed. Nick Linzy, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology, participated in both the training and fieldwork last week.

“Documenting our search for Fort Kirkland is important to me because archaeology is more than just the artifacts we find; it’s the set of tools and methods we use to find these historic sites and our interpretation of what we find,” Linzy said. “With such limited historical documentation, archaeology is our best hope for reconnecting with this lost part of Florida’s history.”

Nicole Grinnan, assistant director of the Archaeology Institute, coordinated the training and fieldwork exercise. She invited the veterans’ group to be a part of it. She has worked with them since 2018 during underwater archaeological projects for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

“Training veterans to help archaeologists and students conduct a metal detector survey to look for this historical site brings together a number of important audiences around the subjects of public archaeology, education and service,” said Dr. Ramie Gougeon, director of the Archaeology Institute, chair of the Department of Archaeology and professor.

Gougeon said they hope to be in a position to present text and a proposed location for a historical marker to Rep. Patt Maney in Fall 2025.

For more information about the Archaeology Institute, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

Four University of West Florida researchers earned a place on Stanford/Elsevier’s Top 2% Scientist Rankings lists in 2024 and 2023. The prestigious list identifies the world’s leading researchers, representing approximately 2% of all scientists worldwide. 

Dr. Jim Spain, research professor in the Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation, Dr. Frank Gilliam, professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Dr. Amitabh Mishra, associate professor in the Department of Cybersecurity and Information Technology, are on the “career-long” list through 2024. Gilliam, Spain and Dr. Allysha Winburn, an associate professor of anthropology landed on the 2023 list released earlier this fall. 

“This recognition is a testament to the world-class faculty we have at UWF who conduct cutting-edge research,” said Dr. Jaromy Kuhl, UWF Provost. “I am very proud of their far-reaching accomplishments and congratulate them on their excellence.”

The rankings evaluate over six million researchers globally, identifying the top 100,000, or those who rank within the top 2% in their specific subfields. The rankings are determined through a comprehensive citation score, which is calculated by key metrics including publications, total citations and authorship roles. 

The full list of the most-cited scientists in the world can be accessed from the Elsevier Data Repository.

For more information about the University of West Florida, visit uwf.edu. 

The University of West Florida’s Archaeology Institute recently wrapped up its summer field schools. Thirty-nine undergraduate and graduate students participated in either a maritime field school or terrestrial field school, with unmatched opportunities to conduct archaeological investigations. The terrestrial field school was led by Dr. Ramie Gougeon, director of the Archaeology Institute, chair and professor, and the maritime field school was run by Dr. Greg Cook, associate professor, and Dr. John Bratten, professor of anthropology, with assistance from the Archaeology Institute’s Will Wilson, marine archaeologist.

“One of the benefits of our archaeology program is that our students acquire practical experience by engaging in survey, excavation, and field recording during the summer,” Bratten said. “This is complemented by subsequent classes in the fall and spring, where they have the opportunity to enroll in artifact conservation and analysis courses. These comprehensive experiences equip students with valuable research topics for graduate studies or specialized training that can lead to employment opportunities.”

With the help of a grant through the Florida Department of State, recent field schools have primarily focused on the archaeological sites of the Luna settlement and the Emanuel Point III shipwreck. The Luna settlement and its associated shipwrecks are of unparalleled significance in the history of Florida. They represent both the settlement and the fleet that first brought Spanish colonists to the Southeast in 1559. The Luna settlement was disturbed by roads, houses and utilities in the 20th century, but intact underground deposits remain undisturbed, and still provide archaeological evidence about this internationally significant site. During the 1559 colonization attempt led by Tristán de Luna y Arellano on behalf of Spain, a major hurricane destroyed seven of 10 settlement fleet ships at anchor. Of the remaining ships, six were lost in Pensacola Bay and archaeologists have discovered three since 1992. The UWF Archaeology Institute and the Department of Anthropology have been stewarding these sites since their discovery. Over the summer, near the shipwreck sites, students were able to dive and recover artifacts such as nine Spanish “ladrillo” bricks, ship fasteners, ship timbers, pottery, food remains, and personal items that haven’t seen the light of day in 465 years.

“Working with the Institute has provided me the opportunity to learn about archaeological research design, excavating in a submerged setting, and geophysical survey technology,” said Emma Graumlich, UWF graduate student and field director in training for the Archaeology Institute. “The work has really allowed me to apply what I have learned in my Historical Archaeology graduate program in terms of archaeological practice and theory. Aside from the archaeological experience, I have also developed skills in student leadership, project planning, and record-keeping.” 

Analysis of the ship’s artifacts combined with a study of the historical documents associated with the 1559 Spanish colonization will attempt to answer questions about 16th-century lifeways, including material culture, diet, ethnicity, and gender of the sailors and colonists. Artifacts will be identified, counted, and relevant data entered into a database. A portion of the grant funds several types of artifact analysis, including Carbon-14 dating, that help us understand where certain artifacts were being made and when. All conservation treatments will be performed in the UWF conservation laboratory under the supervision of Bratten. During the fall semester, students are working in the conservation laboratory and archaeological laboratory to learn more about the artifacts. 

The Archaeology Institute at UWF is an educational, research and service facility concerned with the prehistoric and historic archaeological resources of the northwest Florida region. Archaeological investigations are conducted in both terrestrial and underwater settings. 

For more information on UWF’s Anthropology and Archaeology, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

For more information about the Luna Expedition, visit uwf.edu/luna.

In “Where All Good Flappers Go: Essential Stories of the Jazz Age,” Dr. David Earle has assembled a collection of colorful short stories written primarily in the 1920s that celebrate the awe-inspiring charm of flappers: young women from the era who embraced an irreverent persona and unconventional attitude.

Earle is chair of the University of West Florida Department of Art and Design and professor in the English Department, where he specializes in Modernist literature and print culture. He conducted extensive research for the book, compiling many of the stories from pulp magazines — popular, inexpensive fictional publications that often included controversial content and captivating cover art. 

While young American men were away at battle during World War I, young women flooded the workplace and cast aside the Victorian values and rules that had been expected of them. By the time the soldiers returned, the world had changed. Young women said “No, thank you” to high collars and “Yes, please” to flapper fashion, free-flowing liquor and life on their own terms. In the process, they became the model of modern femininity to young girls and important iconic figures in history.

“Flapper style, from the bobbed hairstyles to the short column dresses, was a reaction to the growth of modernization and the need for mobility among young urban women,” Earle said. “It was about riding bicycles, getting in and out of cars and dancing in speakeasies. You couldn’t do that in Victorian bustles and corsets.” 

Earle said the flapper figure was about much more than just changes in fashion. It was also about changes in cultural equal rights and the rejection of double standards for men. 

“Women wanted equality in their daily lives,” Earle said. “They wanted equal access to jobs and education. They wanted the right to smoke a cigarette, have a drink and explore sexuality like men did. The flapper became a symbol of liberation and a figure of rebellion.” 

In the early 1900s, Americans relied on newspapers and magazines to learn about the world and topics of popular culture. 

“In 1920, radio had just started and very few towns had bookstores,” Earle said. “But everyone had access to drug stores that sold mass pulp magazines which were full of short fiction literature on a variety of topics.”

According to Earle, the most popular and best-selling genre was romance magazines for women, but flapper magazines appealed to both men and women.

“There was a whole family of magazines dedicated to flappers and flapper culture,” Earle said. “They used the flapper as a figure of fascination for men and of envy for women. You saw high society stories about beautiful women trying to get handsome bachelors, but you also saw stories about working girls learning how to be modern in the city and navigate the dangers of the workplace. Flapper characters were chorus girls, gold diggers, real estate agents and reporters.”

African-American flappers were an important part of the cultural phenomenon, and three of the featured stories in the book were compiled from African-American newspapers. 

“It was important to me that African American voices were represented in the book because mass culture borrowed so heavily from African American culture,” Earle said. “There would be no flappers without Jazz music, which became the soundtrack for flapperdom.”

While many of the writers in the book went from writing for magazines to becoming famous and successful authors, many were lost and forgotten. That’s what led Earle, a self-described literary archeologist, to rediscover the flapper stories and bring them back to life.

“Dawn Powell has become a favorite literary author who is now back in print,” Earle said. “F. Scott Fitzgerald went on to write ‘The Great Gatsby’ Viña Delmar wrote a bestselling book in 1928. Other writers, like Dana Ames, had been completely lost. Anita Loos wrote the most famous flapper novel, ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ but her story in the book ‘Why Girls Go South’ had only been republished once or twice.”

Earle said the illustrations and artwork in flapper magazines were as alluring as the stories.

“Flappers were consciously visual by the way they dressed; by the way they wore makeup; by the way they acted,” Earle said. “It helped them carve out their own space in the world. The illustrations were an important part of telling the stories. They helped readers paint a visual picture of who the flapper could be.” 

One of Earle’s favorite authors in the book is Viña Delmar, who grew up in the Bronx in a theater family. She began writing stories for “Snappy Stories Magazine” and became the model for its flapper illustrations. In “Thou Shalt Not Killjoy,” Delmar tells the story of a flapper with a very conservative boyfriend who gets him to start reading and eventually writing for a flapper mag.

“Delmar writes very funny dialogue,” Earle said. “Her characters are flippant, powerful and funny. She is an author that literary history should really look at again.”

Earle said modern readers will enjoy the stories because they are really funny and at times address issues that are still debated today. 

“Some of the stories speak to issues like abortion, sexuality or how to navigate a masculine-dominated workforce,” Earle said. “At the same time, the stories do illustrate how far women have come, which is very much a great lesson.” 

Above all, Earle said “Where All Good Flappers Go: Essential Stories of the Jazz Age” is about bringing back to life colorful, fun stories written by very talented authors.

“These were wildly popular stories in very popular magazines,” Earle said. “Ultimately, these stories are meant to be enjoyed. This is really entertaining stuff.”

Published in the U.S. and Europe by Pushkin Press, a division of Penguin Random House, “Where All Good Flappers Go: Essential Stories of the Jazz Age” has sold out its first printing in Europe and is available on Amazon.

Earle will discuss flapper authors of the 1920s and “Where all Good Flappers Go” at Experience UWF Downtown Lecture Series on Nov. 16, 2023 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Pensacola Museum of Art. The event is free and open to the public.

The Florida Public Archaeology Network, a program of the University of West Florida, has received a $99,968 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative. The grant funds the project “People of the Apalachicola Region: Exploring cultural heritage as a vector for ecosystem planning, management and adaptation.” The project aims to provide a more representative interpretation of heritage in the Apalachicola area; inform management decision-making for both heritage and environmental resources impacted by climate and human pressures; and guide future research into impacts and issues these resources may be facing.

“It was incredible to find out that the grant got funded,” said Nicole Grinnan, public archaeologist and interim executive director at FPAN. “The Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve expressed a real need to us for more research into local heritage resources. Although we have worked with Reserve in the past, this project will serve to bolster our collaborative efforts and common goals. I’m excited that we’ve been given this amazing opportunity.”

Grinnan is the project lead and principal investigator and will work with UWF graduate student Bria Brooks, among other researchers from UWF and elsewhere. Grinnan’s team will explore the interaction between people and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve environment and how they have interacted over time by encouraging participation in an online survey and community workshops in and around the Reserve. 

“We want to find out how people value this heritage and bring more awareness to it,” Grinnan said. “The project will hopefully inspire people to learn more about history and archaeology in their area, encouraging them to become stewards of these places and preserve them in the long term.” 

They will also seek to learn how climate change has impacted archaeological sites in the Apalachicola area over time and what the impact would be if those sites were lost. The team will use the integration of digital modeling and on the ground monitoring to learn what sites are most at risk of loss.

The project was one of 17 projects selected involving 27 Reserves across the nation and totaling more than $2 million awarded by NERRS. The project will span from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024.

For more information about FPAN, visit flpublicarchaeology.org. For more information on UWF’s Anthropology and Archaeology, visit uwf.edu/archaeology.

Dr. Allysha Winburn, assistant professor of anthropology, has dedicated the past 15 years as a forensic anthropologist, applying human skeletal and dental expertise to investigations of personal identity and circumstances of death. Winburn uses her knowledge of human variation at a global level to help answer questions of medicolegal significance.

Winburn was recently highlighted in an online feature in Science Magazine that discusses whether anthropologists should measure skulls of human remains to predict their continental ancestry and racial category. She weighed in on a debate over ancestry estimation in the article, titled “Forensic anthropologists can try to identify a person’s race from a skull. Should they?” The article includes a study by Winburn and a colleague about the accuracy of ancestry estimation and Winburn’s opinion on whether current racialized approaches to human variation should be changed to population-affinity approaches, recognizing more local, fine-grained social and biological groups.

“Human skeletal variation does not cluster within social races or continents,” Winburn said. “If forensic anthropologists utilize these categories in our work, we may be doing more harm than good, and reinforcing the incorrect, outdated idea that there are meaningful biological differences among these groups.”

Members of the community will have the opportunity to hear from Winburn and learn about the field of forensic research at the next installment of the UWF Downtown Lecture Series experience which will be held virtually this week on Nov. 18 from 6 to 7 p.m. It will be hosted by the UWF College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. Participants will enter the lab, field and crime scene with Winburn as she shares her diverse experiences in this rewarding and challenging profession. The lecture is free, but registration is required in advance.

Winburn received a bachelor’s degree in archaeological studies from Yale University, master’s degree in anthropology from New York University, and doctorate in anthropology from the University of Florida. In addition to her work in academia, Winburn is the consulting forensic anthropologist for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences and provides field-recovery services for law enforcement agencies throughout Florida and Alabama. Winburn also directs a five-week forensic anthropology summer field school.

To learn more about the UWF anthropology program, visit uwf.edu/anthropology. For more information about UWF Downtown Lecture Series, visit uwf.edu/downtownlectures.

NOTE: The remains photographed are artificial and soley used for simulation and educational purposes.

Dr. Allysha Winburn, assistant professor of anthropology, and Antaya Jennings ’19 recently published a peer-reviewed article in a special issue of the journal “Forensic Anthropology,” dedicated to diversity and inclusion.

Their article, “Ancestral Diversity in Skeletal Collections: Perspectives on African American Body Donation,” tackles the lack of diversity in the field of forensic anthropology, in terms of both practitioner demographics and the skeletal collections on which their research is based.

“The field of forensic anthropology has a diversity problem,” Winburn said. “Most of our practitioners identify as white, and this lack of racial diversity bleeds into everything we do—from the research questions we ask to the donated skeletal collections we analyze (which are also made up almost entirely of white donors).

“I think our article is important because it not only draws attention to the ancestral disparities in our research collections but also offers productive suggestions for rectifying them and considers perspectives from stakeholders of color both within and outside the forensic anthropology community.”

Jennings said the response to the article in the forensic anthropology community has been amazing.

“I had no idea it would be this important,” Jennings said. “ I am extremely excited that other people are sharing our excitement for this work.”

Winburn said every published article is important to academic scholars, but this one in particular will stand out for being student-initiated.

“After a discussion in my undergraduate human osteology course, in which I called for increasing ancestral diversity among body donors to skeletal research facilities, Antaya asked, ‘How can black donors be expected to donate their remains to science when many do not trust a largely white scientific and medical establishment due to a long history of abuses?’” Winburn said. “The resulting collaboration explores the thorny question of how to diversify skeletal body donations from multiple, sometimes conflicting, perspectives. For opening my eyes to those perspectives outside my experience, I remain in her debt.”

To learn more about the UWF anthropology program, visit uwf.edu/anthropology.

Dr. Katherine Miller Wolf, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida, is the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant. Miller Wolf will teach students from the National Autonomous University of Honduras at an archaeological site in Copan, Honduras from May to December 2020.

“I am truly honored to be a Fulbright Scholar to Honduras,” Miller Wolf said. “It is a country that has captivated me for more than a decade with its rich cultural history, beauty and wonderful people.”

The Council for International Exchange of Scholars has administered the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program for nearly 70 years on behalf of the U.S. Department of State. The program awards nearly 470 teaching and research opportunities in more than 125 countries to university scholars and other professionals, including artists, attorneys and scientists.

The U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program allows Miller Wolf, who as a bioarchaeologist specializes in the study of skeletal remains at archaeological sites, to share her expertise abroad. She will lead the delicate process of the excavation and preservation of the largest collection of ancient Maya human skeletal remains yet recovered in Mesoamerica.

Miller Wolf studies human remains, such as teeth and bones, to determine information about these civilizations, such as how the people were related and where they were located. As part of a research program, she spent several years in Copan doing archaeological fieldwork to understand what life was like for the ancient Maya. The opportunity in Honduras piqued her interest, and the area has remained the focus of her research. Five years ago, Miller Wolf was invited to teach an intensive summer course on physical anthropology at UNAH; the first course ever taught by a bioarchaeologist in the country.

“UNAH has bright students and I am excited for this collaboration that will allow me to offer them unique classes and research opportunities with archaeological materials,” Miller Wolf said. “It will allow the students to directly engage with the stories and experiences of their ancestors in a very tangible way. Copan is a second home and I feel incredibly lucky to spend my time there among friends doing two of my favorite things – teaching and research.”

On Jan. 4, 2020, Miller Wolf was awarded the 2020 Archaeological Institute of America Conservation and Heritage Management Award for her conservation work in Copan. The award is made in recognition of an individual’s or institution’s exceptional achievement in any of the following areas: archaeological conservation (the conservation of an artifact, monument, or site); archaeological conservation science (an advance in deterioration analysis or treatment of archaeological materials); archaeological heritage management (the overall management of a site or group of sites including their preservation and interpretation to the public); education/public awareness of archaeological conservation through teaching, lecturing, and exhibition, or a publication. In 2004, Miller Wolf launched a massive conservation project involving more than 1,200 human skeletal remains.

“When I arrived in 2004, the collection had been in deteriorating paper boxes or bags for anywhere from 30-100 years and the boxes had rodents and insects that had damaged the remains,” Miller Wolf said. “I cleaned all of them starting in 2004 and then was able to purchase boxes and re-house them with some funds from the National Science Foundation.”

Miller Wolf earned her doctorate in anthropology in 2014 from the Center of Bioarchaeological Research in the School of Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University and joined the UWF faculty in 2019. She has incorporated her own research interests by adding new curriculum including bioarchaeology, biological and evolutionary theory, primatology, peoples and cultures of the world, human osteology and bioanthropology. Her classroom focuses on helping students understand the relevance of anthropology in a variety of disciplines and career paths. She also provides active learning opportunities in the classroom through observation of casts and real specimens of bones from humans, primates, and other animals.

Following her time in Copan, Miller Wolf hopes to continue the existing collaboration with the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and the National Autonomous University of Honduras and expand the work in ways that can lead to cultural exchange and further institutional collaborations.

“The potential impact of this experience on my teaching and professional work is exciting,” Miller Wolf said. “It is important for teachers to periodically reconsider and reframe the way in which they convey information. The requisite changes to course materials and the challenge of teaching in my second language will allow for refinement of my abilities as an instructor.”

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program and is supported by the people of the United States and partner countries around the world. For more information, visit eca.state.gov/fulbright.

For more information on UWF’s Division of Anthropology and Archaeology, visit uwf.edu/anthropology.

University of West Florida President Emeritus Dr. Judith Bense was recently named the 2019 recipient of the Evelyn Fortune Bartlett Award, the most prestigious award presented by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. Bense was one of three UWF faculty members honored during the 41st Annual Preservation Awards Ceremony, held May 17 at the Pensacola Little Theatre.

The award is named in honor of Evelyn Fortune Bartlett, the patron of Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale, which was bequeathed to the public for historic preservation. The award honors individuals who exemplify the guardianship of Florida’s historic properties through philosophy and actions.

“Receiving the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation 2019 Evelyn Fortune Bartlett Award is a great honor,” Bense said. “The Florida Trust is the most respected historic preservation organization in the state and I greatly appreciate this recognition by their leadership. You never do historic preservation or archaeology alone. It takes many, many people and the support of the University of West Florida, the state of Florida and Pensacola’s citizens. I accept this award for all of us and am grateful.”

Bense, president emeritus and professor of anthropology at UWF, founded the University’s anthropology and archaeology program in 1980 and served as its academic chair beginning in 2001, until 2008 when she became UWF’s fifth president. She also established the Archaeology Institute in 1980 and served as director for 20 years.

In 2006, she founded the statewide Florida Public Archaeology Network which is headquartered at UWF. FPAN is the largest statewide organization dedicated to bringing archaeology to the general public in the United States. The author of five books and 17 chapters in books and professional journals, Bense has been awarded over 75 grants and contracts totaling more than $6 million.

Dr. Elizabeth Benchley, director for the UWF Division of Anthropology and Archaeology and Archaeology Institute; Margo Stringfield, faculty research associate in the Division of Anthropology and Archaeology; and Catherine Eddins, community outreach coordinator for the UWF Archaeology Institute accepted the Outstanding Achievement Award in the Organizational Achievement category on behalf of the Archaeology Institute. The award recognized the work in preserving two important African-American cemetery sites in Pensacola dating back to the late 19th century.

The Institute worked with municipal government, community leaders and volunteers, among others, to groom AME Zion and Magnolia cemeteries to be valued resources that promote heritage tourism in Pensacola.

“The UWF Archaeology Institute is proud to be involved with efforts to preserve our community’s historic cemeteries,” Stringfield said. “Each of our historic cemeteries tells a story of the rich and diverse heritage. Our historic cemeteries are outdoor museums and inviting green spaces that create a sense of place for residents and tourists alike.”

Additional awards included an Outstanding Achievement Award in the Infill division to the UWF Historic Trust Museum Plaza for the master site plan and elements of Museum Plaza which preserve Pensacola’s history downtown and tell the city’s story; and UWF alumna Cynthia Catellier, assistant director of Institutional Effectiveness, received an Honorable Mention award in the Preservation/Education/Media division for her work documenting the iron fencing and gates at St. Michael’s Cemetery.

The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation is a statewide nonprofit dedicated to protecting Florida’s extraordinary heritage and history. Founded in 1978, the Florida Trust has collaborated to save irreplaceable Florida treasures like the Historic Florida Capitol and is a statewide partner of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

To learn more about the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, visit floridatrust.org.

For more information about the UWF Division of Anthropology and Archaeology, visit uwf.edu/anthropology.

For more information on the UWF Historic Trust, visit uwf.edu/historictrust.

The Florida Public Archaeology Network, a program of the Division of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of West Florida, recently teamed up with East Carolina University’s Program in Maritime Studies and the Task Force Dagger Foundation to create a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for wounded U.S. Special Operations Command service members.

Dr. Della Scott-Ireton, FPAN associate director, and Nicole Grinnan, public archaeologist for FPAN’s Northwest Florida region, were requested by ECU’s Dr. Jennifer McKinnon to provide underwater archaeological training to wounded veterans in an effort to locate missing World War II service members following the 1944 Battle of Saipan, located in the Mariana Islands north of Guam.

FPAN is currently the only public archaeology program in the U.S. providing this unique specialized underwater training. The veteran divers were sponsored by the Task Force Dagger Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to heal wounded, injured and ill veterans through several programs, including rehabilitative therapy such as scuba diving.

For three days, Scott-Ireton and Grinnan provided training in a pool and on land to 14 wounded veteran divers, using a modified version of FPAN’s Submerged Sites Education and Archaeological Stewardship program. The group was trained to identify and record archaeological remains such as aircraft parts and other combat-related artifacts. They began their underwater mission in Saipan’s Tanapag Lagoon in July 2018, and the dives took place over the course of approximately three weeks into August 2018. Divers rotated through various operational crews, each getting a chance to explore different targets throughout the lagoon.

“A really neat thing about this project is that it shows the impact archaeology can have on anyone and shows archaeology in action,” Grinnan said. “An amazing effort has been put into this project and I am honored and humbled to have been a part of it. We hope to be able to continue working on this project and working with ECU and TFD.”

Hugh Foskey, a Task Force Dagger diver for the Saipan Lagoon mission, served in the U.S. Army Special Forces for 26 years.

“All of us who spent time in the military know what it’s like to lose friends,” Hugh said. “When I knew it was a possibility to do this project for families to get closure, I wanted to be part of that.”

The divers discovered a Japanese landing craft and the remains of water mines and investigated and cleared 77 targets. Winning the battle in Saipan gave U.S. access to Tinian, just north of Saipan, where U.S. bomber planes took off to target Japan with atomic weapons. Approximately 47,000 WWII service members remain missing in the Indo-Pacific region.

The results of the mission will be reported to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, who will analyze the information and determine next steps in the investigation process.

For more information on UWF’s Division of Anthropology and Archaeology, visit uwf.edu/anthropology.

Pensacola – University of West Florida anthropologists are conducting a study comparing two methods used to recover precious artifacts.

Since the mid-1960s, the standard for the recovery of plant remains from archaeological sites has been the flotation technique.

“It is as simple as just placing a sample in a tub of water and skimming off what floats to the top,” said Dr. Ramie Gougeon, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, explaining the process.

While flotation method is both inexpensive and efficient, some ethnobotanists say it can damage the delicate materials recovered.

“In places where the archaeological sites have been dry for a long period of time, taking the fragile botanical materials out of the ground, getting them soaking wet in a float tank and then drying them out again may cause them to swell, crack, deteriorate and then dry again and break apart,” Gougeon said.

Those ethnobotanists have recommended an alternate method to recover these samples, called dry sieving, which involves passing the collected materials through a series of nested screens that progressively get smaller.

However, that method is much more labor-intensive, capturing every rock, stone and particle of sand and as the screen sizes get smaller.

“It’s much more challenging to do the dry sieving,” Gougeon said. “It may not be damaging the samples, but it took just shy of 97 hours to process one sample.”

Compare that to the flotation method in which processing the sample took only 15 hours.

“It’s a lot easier to go through it, because we’re not keeping as much of the sediment, compared to the dry sieve it might be one-one hundredth of the sediment that we have to go through,” said Jenni Baggett, a senior majoring in anthropology, who is helping Gougeon perform the research.

Baggett received a grant from the UWF Office of Undergraduate Research to take part in the study. She has made presentations at UWF, as well as at a conference Memphis, Tennessee, and in Jacksonville at a meeting of the Florida Anthropological Society about the research.

The study that Gougeon and Baggett are conducting tests the flotation versus the dry sieving method using samples gathered from two sites on Pensacola Bay. One of those is the site where explorer Tristán de Luna y Arellano attempted to establish a Spanish colony in Pensacola in 1559.

“We’ve got two samples from the Luna site, one that’s right on the water and once that’s a little further inland, and then we’ve got one sample from a site that’s right on Santa Rosa Island between sand dunes,” Gougeon said.

The samples collected by flotation and by the sieve methods will be sent to archaeobotanical analysts for them to perform a double-blind study.

“They won’t know if they got a dry or a wet sample,” Gougeon said. “They are supposed to tell us not only what it is, but if it was damaged or appears to be of a lesser quality.”

At the conclusion of the botanical study, the results will be compared to evaluate any differences between the samples.

“Basically the question is, is the time worth the effort?” Gougeon said. “Because (the dry sieve method) is so prohibitively expensive in terms of time that at the end of the day if we can’t tell a qualitative difference between this and floating it, we’re going to quit doing this immediately and we’ll go to the float.”

The University of West Florida Historic Trust is introducing “Florida Stories,” a new walking-tour mobile app to enhance the visitor experience in historic Pensacola. A launch event will be held in front of the T.T. Wentworth Jr. Florida State Museum on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 10 a.m.

The app, which features a 12-stop, self-guided, illustrated audio tour, was produced by the Florida Humanities Council and is now available for free download to mobile phones. Visitors can download the app directly onto their Apple or Android mobile phones or via a QR code shown on rack cards in participating venues and the Visit Pensacola Visitors Center. The tours are also available online at floridahumanities.org.

“We are excited to be part of this convenient way for residents and visitors to hear the fascinating stories and rich history of Pensacola,” said Robert Overton Jr., executive director of the UWF Historic Trust. “This new walking tour app provides us with another opportunity to connect with our visitors at their leisure.”

The app was developed using funds from the State of Florida and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Pensacola walking tour was made possible by a grant from the Florida Humanities Council and collaborating partners UWF Historic Trust, UWF Archaeology Institute, Florida Public Archaeology Network and Visit Pensacola.

To learn more about the UWF Historic Trust, visit historicpensacola.org.

Pensacola – An image appears that catches the attention of Dr. Greg Cook, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida, as he looks intently at a sonar screen.

“A really good looking anomaly right over here, guys,” Cook tells two UWF graduate students, Stewart Hood and Matt Newton.

Anomalies are exactly what Cook and the students are searching for. They use both side-scan sonar and a magnetometer while on board a boat cruising Pensacola Bay.

They hope those anomalies turn out to be more wreckage from the fleet of ships explorer Tristán de Luna y Arellano brought with him when he attempted to establish a Spanish colony in Pensacola in 1559. A hurricane is believed to have destroyed seven of the vessels.

The wreckage of two of those ships have already been discovered.

The Emanuel Point shipwreck was found by archaeologists from the Florida Division of Historical Resources in 1992. Then, in 2006, UWF students, using the same magnetometer that Cook and his crew are now deploying, discovered the remnants of a second ship, called the Emanuel Point II.

“This is basically taking the earth’s magnetic field and looking for any discrepancies,” Hood said of the magnetometer. “So, any of what we call ‘hits’ or ‘spikes’ in that field can be indicative of a shipwreck.”

A Florida Division of Historical Resources grant is supporting the shipwreck research.

While Cook and his students continue to look for more vestiges of Luna’s fleet in the water, another UWF archaeological team is searching on land for artifacts from Luna’s settlement that inhabited what is now Pensacola from 1559 to 1561. The search is part of a 10-week combined terrestrial and maritime field school.

“They could be anywhere,” Cook said of the Luna ships. “The smaller ones could be closer to shore, or there could be ones farther out as well. We’re just going to blanket the whole area since this seems to be ground zero.”

While Cook said most of what shows up during the sonar and magnetometer surveys is modern debris or natural items, such as tree limbs or rocks, some of the anomalies found will require UWF students to dive at the locations to investigate them.

“We’ll have a day just with nothing but what we call ‘target-testing, anomaly investigation,’” Cook said. “That’s a key skill for these students to learn as well. If you’re doing cultural resource management, that’s part of it.”

Undergraduate students taking part in the field school will split their time working on water and on land.

“I can’t imagine a cooler field school experience than that,” Cook said.

A grant from the Florida Division of Historical Resources grant is helping to pay for the field school research.

Past summer field schools have yielded important discoveries, including the wreckage of the Emanuel Point II.

The Luna colony was struck by a hurricane a month after arriving from Mexico. The colonists were able to unload most of the ships before the storm, except for food supplies, Cook said.

“But there was one ship supposedly that was loaded and ready to go back to Mexico that was lost, and that ship may have a lot more stuff on it,” Cook said.

Artifacts from the Emanuel Point shipwrecks found so far range from pottery to cannonballs.

“We’re finding some of the munitions that were probably just inaccessible after the hurricane,” he said.

Learning how to use the sonar and magnetometer equipment provides valuable experience for students that extend beyond the classroom, Cook said.

“This gets a lot of students jobs, knowing how to run these systems and interpret them,” he said.

Pensacola – While stories fill history books about immigrants who came to Colonial America and thrived, not as much is known about those who didn’t succeed.

Through exhaustive research, Jen Knutson, a graduate research assistant with the University of West Florida’s Division of Anthropology and Archaeology, is telling the story of one of those ill-fated groups – a short-lived, small settlement known as Campbell Town that existed in British West Florida from 1766-1770.

Campbell Town was a colony established in Pensacola by Huguenots, who were French Protestants. After King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, thereby declaring Protestantism illegal, Huguenots fled France in droves.

Seeking freedom from religious persecution, Huguenots immigrated to other countries in Europe, including the Netherlands, Ireland and England, as well as to colonies in America, Knutson said.

“Our colony was some of the last to flee France,” Knutson said of the Campbell Town settlement. “I’m not exactly sure when they fled France. They could have been in Britain 50 years before they came here.

“But they were destitute. They were seeking a place to go.”

Knutson said it’s not certain how many Huguenots initially came to Pensacola to form the settlement. She said she’s read estimates of anywhere from 40 to about 300.

“We don’t have a census of them until two years later in British documents from Pensacola during the meeting of the British assembly here,” she said. “They were supported by the British, The British gave them supplies. They gave them a food stipend.”

The origin of the name of the settlement is also unclear.

“We don’t know,” Knutson said. “There’s several people it could be. I have not figured that out, nor have any other scholars.”

The members of Campbell Town had plans to make and sell goods, including silk and wine, but they also suffered many hardships.

The British suspected them of hiding Catholics within the colony, Knutson said.

“I don’t think that they did,” Knutson said. “But the suspicion was there.”

Most of the settlers in Campbell Town would ultimately succumb to illnesses, including yellow fever and dysentery.

“Through my research I don’t think that any survived,” Knutson said. “Maybe a couple but we certainly don’t have any records. I haven’t been able to find out where they went, if they did.”

Studying historic maps and using Google Earth, Knutson believes Campbell Town was located somewhere around the Scenic Bluffs area. However, she said she won’t know for sure whether she has correctly pinpointed the exact location until she is able to perform an archaeological excavation of the area, which she hopes to get permission to do by late summer.

Dr. Ramie Gougeon, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at UWF, who has assisted Knutson in her Campbell Town project said her research is important “because so little is known about this group of people who moved to Pensacola for a better life – a fresh start – and after just a short period of time were gone.”

“The documentary evidence is only a small piece of the puzzle,” Gougeon said. “The archaeology can help us understand what daily life was like for this community. Is the support we read about in the documents corroborated in the archaeological record? Can we find evidence of early successes or of strategies that might have led to their eventual failure? Campbell Town is a piece of Pensacola’s French connection that very few people know about.”

Knutson said she believes researching the lives of Huguenots who fled to America is important because of their many contributions, including to the Revolutionary War effort. Important figures, such as Paul Revere and Alexander Hamilton, were Huguenot descendants.

“What I really would like people to know is that they were significant contributors to American culture,” Knutson said. “It was a tragic situation that they didn’t survive here, but they did survive elsewhere.”

Field Work is a monthly series that highlights research and other scholarly activities being conducted by UWF undergraduate students.

Pensacola – While ancient Rome’s upper class is well-chronicled in history books, little is known about the swath of less well-to-do citizens who accounted for the bulk of the empire’s population. “People without history is often what we call them in anthropology,” said Dr. Kristina Killgrove, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida.

However, a study by Killgrove and Dr. Janet Montgomery, a professor at Durham University in the United Kingdom, has helped uncover information about the lives of the common class by analyzing teeth from their skeletons. It’s the first study to use isotope analysis to find evidence of immigrants in ancient Rome.

Teeth trap elements within them when they are formed. Using remains from two cemeteries outside Rome, Killgrove analyzed 105 teeth for strontium isotopes, which reflect the geology of the place a person is living. For example, water that runs over rocks pick up strontium.

“And then you incorporate it into your body when you’re eating plants and animals and drinking the water,” Killgrove said. “So it sort of gives you a signature of the geology,”

Studying isotopes from Rome is more complex than from other ancient areas, said Killgrove, who went to Rome in 2007 and performed her study on isotopes in 2008 and 2009.

“They were importing water, and they were importing food, which makes it very different from all of the other sites in the ancient world when you’re doing isotope analysis,” she said.

Montgomery examined 55 of the teeth for oxygen isotopes. When the isotopes of each element are studied from dental enamel, it’s possible to find out whether that person’s tooth was formed during a time when they were living in Rome, Killgrove said.

“The oxygen found in teeth is ingested primarily as drinking water and other fluids, rather than from the oxygen we breathe, which have rainwater as their ultimate source,” Montgomery said. “The final link that allows us to use oxygen to investigate where someone was living is that the oxygen isotopes of rain falling in a region change in a well-defined manner as rainclouds travel inland, over mountain ranges and from the equator to the poles. So, a person living in Rome near the sea would normally have a higher oxygen isotope ratio than someone living half way up the Apennines (a mountain range in Italy) as would someone who came to Rome from eastern Europe.”

The two professors revealed their findings in a research paper was recently published by PLOS One, a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal. The research paper can be viewed here.

Two of the immigrants may have come to Rome from the Alps, or somewhere with an older geology, as their strontium isotope ratios were much higher than Rome. Another of the immigrants could have come from the Apennine Mountains, Killgrove said. Another could have arrived from North Africa, with a very low strontium isotope ratio and a high oxygen ratio that’s similar to that area’s geology and climate.

Of those four immigrants, three were adult males and one was an adolescent whose sex is unknown. While it’s not certain when they came to Rome, it is clear that they were born outside of the city.

Killgrove and Montgomery also analyzed carbon isotopes because they can be used to determine how a subject’s carbohydrate consumption might have shifted over time. Their research revealed that the immigrants changed their diets after moving to Rome.

“You would expect that people who move to a new place would start eating new stuff that’s available there, but the isotopes can actually tell us that and confirm our hypothesis,” Killgrove said. ”Some of my research is about confirming these hypotheses we have based on historical information, but nobody has ever really been able to test. And now we can use skeletons.”

Pensacola – Hours after the discovery of a new species of human ancestor was announced, Dr. Kristina Killgrove was able to put replicas of bones from the landmark archaeological find in the hands of her students.

Killgrove, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida, gave students in her Human Osteology class a hands-on experience with prehistory by printing models of the bones from the Homo naledi species on a 3-D printer in the Division of Anthropology and Archaeology.

“I think it came out on a Thursday,” Killgrove said of the announcement of the new species. “I was able to download, print the models, bring them to class on Friday and ask, ‘Did you hear about the new species? Here it is.’”

Killgrove and Dr. Ramie Gougeon, also an assistant professor of anthropology at the University, have been using 3-D printing and scanning technology to recreate historical artifacts for the classroom – from the skull of a beaver to ancient ceramics.

The 3-D printing technology isn’t only being used to recreate bones and other artifacts at colleges and universities. It’s also being utilized in a host of industries, from producing automobile parts to developing medical devices.

Gougeon said he sees how his students’ ability to learn is enhanced when they are able to touch and examine 3-D digitized copies made of ancient projectile points, which are the stone tips that were attached to weapons such as arrows or spears.

Dr. Kristina Killgrove helps senior archeology major Melissa Poppy in her class.

“When you hand them the plastic version of it – even if it’s canary yellow – you see them turning it over, and you see them rubbing their fingers along it,” Gougeon said of the 3-D recreations. “It’s a totally different way of experiencing the artifact, and I think it’s a really valuable teaching tool.”

The 3-D printing in the Division of Anthropology and Archaeology will also be used to develop an app that will allow students to study the human skeleton, said Maddeline Voas, a biological anthropology graduate research assistant who is creating and printing 3-D models of skeletal materials and artifacts for research and teaching purposes this academic year.

“We’re 3-D printing one side of a human skeleton, and we’re going to make an app for students so they can go and modify it and learn more about it because not everybody has access (24 hours a day/7 days a week) to a skeletal collection,” Voas said.

Among the bones Voas is able to recreate in the lab is a sacrum with spina bifida, which takes about six hours to print. After the printing process is completed, Voas paints the skeletal materials or artifacts to add to the realism.

The 3-D printing and scanning technology will also allow the University to better develop a traveling archaeological exhibit for Gulf Power, Gougeon said.

“Obviously we can’t send that kind of stuff on the road without serious liability issues and the ethics of sending real artifacts out into the world,” Gougeon said. “But we can make really, really good replicas, and these can be viewed, they can be held. And it really allows for a number of different ways to teach the public and students about archaeology in a way that you just can’t do with one-of-a-kind artifacts or really fragile materials.”

With the 3-D printer, Killgrove has even been able to recreate bones that aren’t a part of the University’s collection. After putting a call out on Twitter for a copy of a hyoid bone – a horseshoe-shaped bone that supports the tongue – a British researcher who had scanned a hyoid from a an archaeological collection sent Killgrove the file, which she was able to download and print.

Dr. Kristina Killgrove uses some 3D printed artifacts in her class. 

Killgrove said she hopes to use the 3-D technology to perform facial reconstruction of ancient Romans.

In terms of size, Killgrove said the largest item she’s scanned is a historic gravestone for the UWF Archaeology Institute.

“Over time, things had worn away, and we thought if we sort of scanned it with the fancy lasers we’d be able to read the inscription better,” Killgrove said. “And we were.”