Posted on 11/26/2010 9:15:31 PM PST by ApplegateRanch
In May 2008, archaeologists began the tedious task of exhuming the remains of Native Americans at a remote site south of Lake Okeechobee and reburying them at another remote site, to make way for a man-made wetland needed to restore the Everglades.
[snip]
But the more the archaeologists dug, the more they found. After nearly two years, the tribes learned that what they'd been told were some teeth and bones turned out to be partial remains of 56 men, women and children moved from an ancient burial ground so significant that it would have been eligible for listing on the National Registry of Historic Places.
"We're not OK with relocating a burial ground," said Tina Osceola, the Seminole Tribe of Florida's Historic Resources Officer. "You're talking about too many individuals and that disturbs the balance between our ancestors and those who are walking today. We want them put back."
[snip]
The controversy has created a nightmare for the South Florida Water Management District, the agency responsible for the Everglades Restoration. Construction near the four burial sites has stopped, delaying the vital project at a time when two angry federal judges are demanding the district speed up the cleanup.
Archeologists hired by the district to move the remains have said they may not be able to return them to their original burial sites because they don't know exactly where they reburied them. Even if they can be located, many of the remains could be damaged if moved again.
[snip] rest at link
(Excerpt) Read more at palmbeachpost.com ...
*ping!*
Um, just how many remains would constitute National Registry?
Government seems to put it at somewhere between “a few teeth and bones”, and 56 individuals.
Well, the cynic in me has to consider that the Tribe may be looking for cash for the desecration.
The optimist is hoping that the Govt respects the principles of the Tribe concerning their ancestors’ remains, which of course they probably won’t as the Govt cannot seem to recall where exactly they buried the already removed remains.
The entire Everglades Restoration Project is based upon faulty premises, inaccurate data, and is best summarized as “A prodigious waste”.
“Train wreck” also comes to mind.
Interestingly, the Seminole and Miccosukee Indians were not the original indians in this area. They were originally living in the Georgia area before driven south by the advancing whites.
Depending on the age of the skeletons, the closest descendants may be in Cuba or Cuba North. The last of the Tequesta, Miami, and Calusa indians left Florida for Havana. For many years, south Florida was uninhabited.
Diseases had wiped out the original indians living in South Florida.
My brother had this happen to him on a project he was working on. Yikes. “Poltergeist,” anyone?
Very well put.
OTOH, look at the court rulings regarding Kennewick Man...and how the Corps of Engineers “handled” that find.
We have none other than our ilustrious Juan McCain mainly to thank for this.
The everglades region in it’s natural form is a vast, nearly useless tract of swampland. Florida already has too many mosquitoes, snakes and alligators. Better to drain all of it and cut a canal to Florida bay.
Sounds like they may be related to the Federal Bureau of Land Manglement. *<];-’)
That is, those that weren't wiped out by other Indians.
It should make a great disposal area for some of the Uppity Easterner transplants I keep hearing about.
Most people, understandably, are unaware that the Everglades "Resoration" Project is another multi-billion dollar eco-scam created to enrich enviro-corps and ordained crony "capitalists" by beggaring propery owners, farmers and taxpayers. Nothing is getting "restored."
It's not surprising that the Indians want their cut of the bribe money. Everyone is making out here except those who own(ed) the property or pay the taxes.
Thank you Jeb Bush, you pathetic blue-blood scumbag RINO.
Let there be another sacred casino and tax free cigarettes.
They gotta lotta bones. The Indians can pay for a DNA test to prove that these are really their ancestors. Then we can talk.
Your comparison is not very apt, since we know the people buried at Arlington are related to people now living in the states. The bones in the swamp, as GladesGuru suggested, may not be the ancestors of the people who are complaining, hence they would have no claim. Got it now?
First the archaeologists have to remember where they buried them. They are so great at documenting to the nanometer where they dig things up, it is amazing beyond belief that they can't “remember” where they reburied them.
IF they reburied them.
And the “even if we find them, some may be damaged if we dig them back up for reburial again” tells me that they didn't particularly treat them with the promised “respect” after they had any data they wanted.
I suspect they pulled a PETA, and dropped them off in the nearest dumpster...or sold them on the black market.
As for “proving” the ancestry issue, you can thank John McCain for the legislation making that a moot argument.
Here’s what I got. Free Republic guys continue to claim they are not racists, yet they always put down people from non-white ethnic groups—as you have done. Got it now?
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