Do you have a group of 10-20 people who want to learn about archaeology laboratory work? Do you like cleaning and sorting thousand-year-old shells? Then schedule a group lab day with us at Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center! We partner with Weedon Island and USF St. Petersburg to host archaeology labs that give the public a chance to interact with real archaeological site materials excavated from Weedon Island, to learn about proper archaeology lab procedures, and to help us do real lab work!
This event can only be done at Weedon Island Preserve and is subject to their availability as well as FPAN staff’s. Participants are required to arrange their own transportation to Weedon Island Preserve.
Materials are excavated by Dr. John Arthur at USFSP, excavations are at household middens, which offer us evidence of daily life. That means the material we work with is about 90% dirty shells, with some small fish bones, charcoal, and the very occasional piece of pottery or stone. Most of the big artifacts are identified in the field during excavation and bagged separately there. Because this is material from the site we are processing, every lab brings something new! As we clean and sort, FPAN staff will help identify shells, bones, and anything else we can and help participants understand how even these seemingly mundane artifacts help tell the story of the people who built and lived at the site for thousands of years!
Please note that none of the materials are associated with burials.