So we have,
is one of the units that we excavated.
When we were doing the excavations in
January, we had arbitrary names for
the regions.
We also had unit numbers for the actual
excavation nodes and then we had layers.
And so all the material so organized,
we know exactly where in
space they came from.
The first layer of work in
the lab is just to wash them and
then to sort through the material.
And so you see here, and
this is somewhat typical of what we have.
Some metal objects,
animal bones, some charcoal,
some pieces of brick and
stone, glass and ceramics.
It's not just that they came from a couple
hundred years ago, but in looking at them,
because of a tremendous amount of
experience in looking at these materials,
tell us practically when it might have
been used down here in Manatee County.
>> This bottle was born clear, and
because of the manganese in it and
UV radiation it became purple over time.
We know that it's a little bit older,
even though manganese is late 19th
century, we know that this is an earlier
manganese because it doesn't
have bottle seems on the lid.
>> One thing that's really interesting
that we find a lot of are teeth because
they preserve better than
just a regular bone because-
>> And these are animal teeth.
>> Yes, animal.
>> All animal.
>> [LAUGH]
>> So what we have here are drum teeth,
we can tell that some of
these are juvenile because of
the way they're situated within the bone.
They're not erupted yet,
so this one you can see
would have had a bone covering over
it within excavation that came off.
>> I think that story of freedom seekers
is the one that was the hardest to reach.
The only source we have on everyday
life is the archaeological record.
And it's so important to expose this
aspect of the underground railroad.
As the ultimate we're trying to get
to is that history of the past.
And be able to robustly and
empirically discuss the ways of life
of these Maroons, these freedom
seekers who found liberty by the shores
of the Bantu River 200 years ago.
And we connect their struggle for
freedom to their descendants
on Andros island,
that carry us into the present.
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