(July 19, 2007)
– High-tech equipment used to
assess underground damage near the World Trade Center site after
Sept. 11 will now assist archaeologists in the search for
artifacts of an 1800s slave settlement near Tampa Bay known as
Angola.
Using a
method called Radar Tomography (RT), St. Petersburg-based Witten
Technologies will scan a two-acre site at Manatee Mineral
Springs in hopes of finding remains of the place that served as
a haven of freedom for escaped slaves, free blacks and
Seminoles.
The
survey begins at 11 a.m. Monday, July 23, at Manatee Mineral
Spring, 1312 2nd Ave. East, on property owned by Reflections
of Manatee, an historic preservation organization. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers also will demonstrate the use of a handheld,
multi-sensor unit that maps sites and tracks artifacts through
Radio Frequency Identification devices.
“We’re excited about RT’s archaeological potential. Similar to
our work with the utility industry, we can precisely identify
where objects of interest are and provide targets during
exploratory digging,” said Robert Green, Witten’s chief
executive officer. According to Green, the company is volunteering their services in the search for Angola.
Without turning a shovel, underground
items such as house foundations, artifact clusters and
archaeological features can be identified using geophysics, says
Green. The
non-invasive method involves a mobile array of
ground-penetrating radar antennas, a laser survey station and
image processing software. Initially, the technology was
developed to provide a 3-D map of existing underground
infrastructure to companies prior to major road or utility
construction projects.
Witten provided RT services in lower Manhattan
during recovery and rebuilding efforts after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.
“The value of contributions from Witten and the
Corps to our project is tremendous. RT scanning of Manatee
Mineral Spring will provide a rich source of information for
us,” said Dr. Uzi Baram, Angola scholar and associate professor
of anthropology at New College of Florida.
Reflections of
Manatee Director Trudy Williams added, “Our goal is to safeguard
potential archaeological evidence for research such as this.”
In addition to Angola layers, Baram hopes RT will locate
materials that reveal the multiple histories of the spring.
For more
on the research on Angola, visit the Web site at
www.lookingforangola.com/.
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