Unearthing Our Ice Age History

A fresh dig at the Old Vero Site will offer new clues to our distant past

Unearthing Our Ice Age History

A fresh dig at the Old Vero Site will offer new clues to our distant past.

unearthing our ice age history

By Deborah borfitz

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ometime next year, successive waves of archeologists, paleontologists and volunteer worker bees will start descending the banks of the Main Relief Canal behind the county administrative complex for an exacting, mostly teaspoon-by-teaspoon dig in the dirt. The quest: to find fossils and artifacts to complement a dispersed collection of earlier findings from the Old Vero Site – most notably, human bones found alongside remains of extinct Ice Age animals in an excavation conducted nearly a century ago.

The modern-day excavation is being championed by the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee (OVIASC), a growing local group with about 45 dues-paying members. It was formed in late 2009 after antique appraiser and auctioneer Ron Rennick introduced the citizenry to the Ice Ageera mammalian bone fragment discovered within walking distance of the Old Vero Site. Rennick now cochairs OVIASC with Sandra Rawls, a trained zoologist who formerly worked at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. The REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION ŠVERO BEACH MAGAZINE

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Pam Cooper, Supervisor of the Archives Center & Genealogy Department at the Indian River County Main Library, has compiled a traveling exhibit that tells the story of the Old Vero Site up to the present.

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© chip claRk, smithsonian institution

This Ice Age-era mammalian bone fragment was discovered within walking distance of the Old Vero Site. The 13,000-year-old-plus artifact, with an incised image of a mammoth or mastodon, is the oldest and only Ice Age art of its kind in the Americas. The discovery, scientifically authenticated by researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Florida, was made by avocational fossil hunter James Kennedy of Vero Beach.

Members of the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee work to uncover an 18-million-year-old bone while on a training dig at the Thomas Farm site near Gainesville last year.

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13,000-year-old-plus artifact, with an incised image of a mammoth or mastodon, is the oldest and only Ice Age art of its kind in the Americas.

The discovery, scientifically authenticated by researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and UF, was made by avocational fossil hunter James Kennedy of Vero Beach. Kennedy plans to sell the artifact, which Rennick says could fetch “possibly millions” at auction.

Whoever did this unusually sophisticated Ice Age carving also did others, according to art historian Barbara Olins Alpert in a lecture at the Vero Beach Museum of Art in 2010. “The skills of Ice Age artists got passed down through the generations within a family,” relays OVIASC Vice Chairman Susan Grandpierre. An artist of that caliber

probably also had a teacher, she says.

Scientific investigation of the carving indicates it was probably done when the bone was “green,” adds Rawls, “so the age of the bone is the age of the carving.”

A fresh dig at the Old Vero Site, using molecular science to tease clues out of organic matter like acorns and insects, could help more precisely age Kennedy’s bone fragment, notes Rennick. “We may even find more Ice Age art.”

While the rare artifact may be lost to public view, the investigation surrounding it has lent credence to the claim of the late state geologist Elias Howard Sellards – based on the original 1913-16 excavation – that people were in North America and hunted animals in Vero Beach during the last Ice Age. Scientists have been debating the issue since 1916.

The find also got the attention of archeologist Jeff Speakman, then employed at the Smithsonian Institution. Speakman, now associate director of the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, has agreed to jointly direct the proposed Old Vero Site

excavation with Richard Hulbert Jr., a paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Locals may well remember Hulbert from a “Vero in the Ice Age” presentation and fossil display at the Emerson Center 18 months ago. He held spellbound a crowd who brought in their personal fossil finds for identification.

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he Big Dig, with a five-year price tag of $1.3 million, would seem implausible at first glance. The OVIASC needs to come up with $200,000 to get the project going in 2012 and they’ll be mostly local dollars. The site has turned up only a handful of human artifacts after nearly a century of searches. And excavation will be focused on something less than a 50-by-90-foot strip of the Old Vero Site believed to be undisturbed since 1913 by canal construction, fill projects, and the installation of multiple underground utility lines. However, the master map can’t account for disturbances by untold numbers of amateur fossil-hunters over the last century.

Indeed, up until two years ago, no

one seemed particularly concerned about preserving the site’s integrity. Amateur digging was long past its heyday, owing to the fact that it had become hard work. Many years of excavation buried fossils at ever-growing depths further back on the canal bank, says local architect and paleontology hobbyist Gary Peirce.

For the most part, fossil hunters have “scratched around” areas already dug out by the Indian River Farms Water Control District, points out Superintendent David Gunter. The Indian River Farms Company put a lot of “overburden” onto the site during construction of the canal, which has helped protect the underlying strata.

arbara Purdy, professor emerita of anthropology at UF, is the most tenacious supporter of the Big Dig, if not its biggest cheerleader. She was part of an original group of modern-day scientists – including Lafayette, CO-based radiocarbon dating expert Thomas Stafford, Florida State University anthropologist Glen Doran, and then-FSU graduate student Grayal Farr – who stood ready to excavate the site in 2008 in connection with the intended building of a stormwater treatment facility directly atop the Old Vero Site. Purdy says she had been struck by how “pristine” the site looked during a visit here three years earlier. She is now part of a new group of scientists working with the enthusiastic OVIASC with its newly minted non-profit status and hoped-for spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

While Sellards was a reputable scientist, “doubting Thomases” discredited the significance of the Old Vero Site for years – and understandably so, Purdy says. “In 1915, there was no knowledge whatsoever about humans co-existing with now-extinct animals.” It wasn’t until the 1920s and ’30s that scientists began associating different spearhead styles with prehistoric bison and elephant species in the Western hemisphere. Sellards’ work was confirmed by Frederic Loomis, who made a similar find at a site in Melbourne, Fla., in 1922, although some of his less trustworthy contemporaries probably “salted” the site with artifacts, says Purdy, author of the 2008 book Florida’s People During the Last Ice Age. Susan Grandpierre says that a Smithsonian scientist early on wrote off the human bones, which collectively became known as “Vero Man,” as those from modern Indians (based on skull measurements then believed to be an important dating tool). Despite many subsequent discoveries nationwide of human remains and artifacts that appeared to be late-Ice Age, interest in Vero Man remained largely with tourists and amateur fossil-hunters. OVIASC board member Jane Howard, professor

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emerita of art and humanities at Indian River State College, says that early developers simply bulldozed over old fossils and bones to avoid having their projects held up by the state authentication process.

The Old Vero Site is a rare and important spot – the only one in all of the Americas where human bone artifacts occur with those of extinct Ice Age animals. Though technically unproven, recent analysis of rare earth elements from the site indicate that what’s been found there date to roughly the same time. “The site’s importance will be earth-shattering if we can prove its authenticity. The radiocarbon dating process will be applicable only if plant remains are uncovered,” Barbara Purdy adds, “because no collagen necessary for radiocarbon dating has survived in the mineralized human and animal bones at the site.”

The City of Vero Beach is also anxious to move forward with construction of the stormwater treatment facility.

But before the project can receive a state permit, the city is required to look for archeological remains. The OVIASC would of course prefer to see a professional scientific excavation. Most major building projects employ “contract” archeologists who instead discourage excavation based on a cursory examination of sediment well above the Ice Age stratum, Purdy notes.

Scientists might still be looking for the deposit containing ancient fauna if it weren’t for Peirce, who began digging at the site with his amateur paleontologist friend Victor Zinck as a teenager in the late 1970s. Victor won an international high school science fair competition based on his understanding of the fossil finds there and can eloquently describe the sedimentary layers in which they rested, says Peirce. But it was Peirce himself who two years ago directed the original group of scientists to a spot on the north side of the canal, buried beneath the disturbed overburden, to take a core sampling of the fossil-holding strata.

The OVIASC more recently enlisted David Gunter at the Indian River Farms Water Control District – which made the original finds in the early 1900s during construction of a railroad bridge – to create a composite map suggesting a seemingly undisturbed area to break ground for the formal dig. Gunter painstakingly overlaid old and new maps onto aerial photos to guide diggers to a probable intact section of the Melbourne Formation, the geologic strata buried at least 10 feet below the surface that dates to the Pleistocene period. This master map will be used in conjunction with other older maps to arrive at a focal point for the Big Dig. Since the Old Vero Site is in an urban environment, excavation will require a permit from several different

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Discussing the Old Vero Site: Airport Director Eric Menger, University of Florida professor emerita Barbara Purdy, Indian River State College professor Jane Howard, Superintendent of the Water Control District David Gunter, OVIASC Co-Chairman Ron Rennick, OVIASC Vice Chairman Susan Grandpierre and OVIASC Co-Chairman Sandra Rawls.

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property owners, including the City of Vero Beach, the Water Control District (which controls the waterways and embankments), and two private businesses. The OVIASC will also need a license agreement with the Vero Beach Municipal Airport since the site sits near the main runway, according to Airport Director Eric Menger. The agreement would have to be approved by the Vero Beach City Council, which has already passed a resolution to cooperate with a not-for-profit excavation of the Old Vero Site. A formal working agreement is expected to be readied before the end of the year that should give fundraising efforts a much-needed boost.

“The city has ownership of anything found there,” says Director of Planning & Development Tim McGarry, adding that any significant

findings will be turned over to UF or the Smithsonian for study. “What we don’t want are individuals finding something and selling it on eBay for a million dollars.” The city’s Historic Preservation Commission, which prompted fenced protection of the site in early 2010, will also have to give its blessing to the planned excavation. State and federal laws kick in should any human remains be uncovered. “An excavation is about more than finding fossils,” says McGarry.

It’s also to “gain knowledge” about the flora, fauna, responses to climate change, and way of life during a specific time period.

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nly a single permit will be required from Gunter’s office, given that the planned excavation will stay above water elevation, and will mandate

that the dig occur outside the Mayto-September rainy season so as not to impede the Main Relief Canal’s flood-control function. Happily for the excavators, that also coincides with cooler weather. The dig is expected to take about six weeks.

Prior to full-scale excavation, scientists will need to “truth test” the targeted spot with ground-penetrating radar and possibly more core sampling, says Hulbert. The excavation crew will likely consist of about 20 people at any given time, including paleontologists, archeologists and grad students from the University of Florida and UF’s Museum of Natural History. The project may also involve an expert in geomorphology and another to examine any still-preserved pollen and plant materials, says Speakman.

A backhoe or excavator will remove

At the Fossil Road Show held at the Emerson Center early last year, local residents brought in their fossil finds for identification by Richard Hulbert, a paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The collection included everything from plain rocks and shells to a mammoth jaw and tusks.

overlying sediment to a depth of two or three feet above the target destination. From there on, the dig will proceed with hand tools, “mostly trowels to do the excavating a few centimeters at a time, with dental picks and brushes used to uncover artifacts and fossils as they are discovered,” says Richard Hulbert.

Speakman says he envisions that most of the digging and screening of sediment to recover small fossils and artifacts will be done with local volunteer labor. Up to 100 volunteers will be needed, including folks to help with record-keeping, still image and video documentation, site security, tour guiding, work with visiting school classes, and to provide sustenance and first aid to other workers.

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or all the preparatory work, this is still a theoretical dig.

Money is the big elephant.

OVIASC begins its main fundraising

drive this fall with a goal of $200,000 in mind, says Sandra Rawls. Currently, only about $3,000 is in the coffers. Between $12,000 and $15,000 is needed most immediately for the ground-penetrating radar and survey work. A five-year, $1.3-million plan proposed by UF includes the cost of an exhibit for fossils and artifacts and a dig with several parts that requires a project manager, grad students, and training the public. Jeff Speakman believes that the bulk of the initial $200,000 will be dedicated to the study and care of objects and faunal material after they’re out of the ground. “To just dig and remove objects is relatively inexpensive,” he says, adding that he and Hulbert will likely apply for a grant from the National Science Foundation to augment community fundraising.

Susan Grandpierre says that the Big Dig – or “Dig Old Vero,” as the OVIASC would have it – is not intended as a university-driven research project but a community-driven, privately supported one. Grant funding in the current economic climate could be tough to come by, she notes.

Sadly, Vero Beach at present has “precious little” to show for the Old Vero Site other than a fabulous traveling exhibit compiled by Indian River County Main Library Historical Director Pam Cooper. Skeletal materials, possibly some stone flakes, and thousands of fossils (the majority collected during the 1950s) from the site are housed at UF’s Museum of Natural History. A stone point and tusk specimens have gone missing, Purdy reports. The Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum has dozens of faunal specimens and a replica of the Vero Man skull.

A portion of an actual (presumably female) human skull and some long bone fragments are on the FSU campus, but none of the many other

human remains listed in the original report on the Vero Man Site. Other cranial fragments from the legendary Vero Man may well have turned to dust after 14,000 years. A more or less complete skull was last seen in a 1945 photo that Pam Cooper located at the Florida State Archives, held together by a lot of glue and wax for creating a replica.

In concert with the planned excavation, the OVIASC has enlisted Realtor Charlotte Terry to record the oral histories of Veroites with personal experience hunting for fossils around town, or recollections of those who did. The idea, in part, is to rebuild excitement about all the significant but forgotten findings in private hands.

“Life in Vero Beach was hard years ago,” says Rennick, a 37-year resident.

“People were busy building groves, clearing and developing land, and trying to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Then there was the Depression and World War II. By that time, many of the people from the early days were gone so that the Old Vero Site just sort of fell off the radar.”

Fascination with the Old Vero Site may have hit its peak in the 1930s when John Chase of Ohio opened an “outdoor trailside museum.” The trailside description indicates Chase “placed bones along the trail where they were originally found and had replicas made,” says Pam Cooper.

“He tried to make it into a true reality-type museum.” Thomas Watson, co-worker of Alexander Graham Bell, was one of the museum’s more distinguished visitors, she adds. Professionals from around the country were then coming to Vero Beach for digging purposes and, according to newspaper accounts, did not walk away empty-handed. Fortunately, the bones were not those of the genus Homo sapiens. `

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