Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Heather Walsh Haney will present “The Science and Art of Reading Bones.” Dr. Walsh-Haney is an Associate Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. While she is a forensic anthropologist and also studies human remains from archaeological sites, she is in the Department of Justice Studies at FGCU and not in the Anthropology Department. It is within that Department that she has created the Buckingham Environmental Forensics Facility—an FGCU outdoor forensics facility that provides opportunities for research, education and training concerning clandestine graves. Her presentation will include a comparison of how forensic anthropology is portrayed in popular culture, through television series such as Bones, and that of actual scientists in the field. She will explain what happens to bodies when buried and when left on the ground and how they differ, and how new plant growth and intrusive plant growth are factors in locating a buried body. In other cases, the disturbed soil will subside over time and can leave the ground bare of plant growth. The soil color and density can be another clue to the location of buried remains. The art and science of forensic anthropology has come a long way and it is the science of it that will lead to identification of the body and aid in the identification or exoneration of the perpetrator.

HEATHER WALSH HANEY

Heather received her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida where she trained within the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory for over a decade. She is the consulting forensic anthropologist for 11 Florida Medical Examiner Districts and has been the principle investigator for over 1,500 forensic anthropology cases. As a member of the Department of Health and Human Services Disaster Mortuary Response Team (DMORT), she helped locate and/or identify human remains from Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina and assisted in the recovery of human remains at the World Trade Center following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

 THURSDAY, January 23, 2020,  6:30 PM- WINTERGARDEN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

In the 1950s, Dr. Eugenie Clark put Cape Haze on the map, when she moved here with her family to study marine biology and shark behaviors at a laboratory set up by William and Anne Vanderbilt who just bought the area for a cattle ranch.

Dr. Clark who passed away on February 25, 2015 at the age of 92, was a world- famous ichthyologist. But few know of her work at the mineral springs as an underwater archaeologist. According to Steve Koski, 

“One thing that all the articles I read on Eugenie did not mention was her years of diving at Warm Mineral Springs and Little Salt Spring with the late Col. Bill Royal, who made some of the first archeological and paleontological discoveries at the spring beginning in 1958 and 1959. She heard of the blind tarpon and WMS Spring and wanted to investigate, met Bill Royal, and the two helped bring the finds to the scientific community with the first publication on WMS in American Antiquity (1960): “Natural Preservation of Human Brain, Warm Mineral Springs, Florida.” 

Steve who is the president of the Warm Mineral Springs/Little Salt Springs Archaeological Society and

who has dove and researched the springs as well, will share the interview and this other side of Dr. Clark's activities in North Port in the 1950s.

NOTE: This special evening follows Ted Ehmann's presentation on three incredible Florida women on January 10th, which also honors the world-famous marine biologist Eugenie Clark. 

Society vice president, Gene Dole  will take us back to when he was on one of the the most significant expeditions to discover early man. he 1972 and 1973 International Afar Research Expeditions were groundbreaking evidence of our earliest ancestors. In the presentation, Gene Dole will discuss his personal involvement in the expeditions, the formation of the first truly multinational paleontological research team, the geological background of the site, getting to the site, camp life, how fossils were discovered and the people of the Ethiopian Afar. The lecture will also discuss dating the site, the excavation of numerous hominid fossils including the world famous Lucy, what early human ancestors were found and their impact on the field' of paleoanthropology. Photos of Afar people, fossils, the excavation process, and the controversies around various interpretations of the finds will also be discussed.  Cost for course $20., preregistration suggested.

Think you know about the Calusa? Think again. Now a book that is written for the general reader about an ancient civilization that lived around the Charlotte Harbor for 25 centuries.

Author and founder of the Charlotte Harbor Anthropological Society Ted Ehmann investigated the mound building societies in the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys for twenty-five years before moving to Port Charlotte. Despite his extensive knowledge of these ancient people, he had heard never heard of mound builders far away in south Florida. Upon moving to Port Charlotte, he set out to find out what he could. What he discovered is the basis for his book. Written for the general reader, Ehmann tells the story of a highly evolved people who successfully adapted to southwestern Gulf coastal environment, Immigrants from Louisiana around 800 BC, the Calusa engaged with the people already settled here. The result was a highly expressive culture that built monumental shell mound complexes, canals and even entire islands. Ehmann also shares how the view of these people have been misunderstood by Florida researchers, and how their conclusions fail to capture what was really the most " important and significant hunter-gathering society in world history."

COMING SOON -  The  People of the Great Circle, Prehistoric Mound Builders In South Florida, December, 2019, Pineapple Press, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing  ISBN 97816833405 22 Available through booksellers everywhere