The Manasota Key Offshore (8SO7030) is an archaeological site under of water in the Gulf of Mexico near the southwest coast of Florida. The site contains remains of multiple humans who were buried in a freshwater pond 7,200 years ago. The pond, which was about above sea level at the time, was subsequently covered by the waters of the Gulf as sea levels rose. The site is about from the coast of Manasota Key, near

Venice, Florida Venice is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The city includes what locals call "Venice Island", a portion of the mainland that is accessed via bridges over the artificially created Intracoastal Waterway. The city is located in Sou ...

. The site was found in 2016 by a fossil hunter, who reported possible human remains. Archaeologists examined the site using non-intrusive methods, including magnetometry, sub-bottom profiling and

side-scan sonar Side-scan sonar (also sometimes called side scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side imaging sonar, side-imaging sonar and bottom classification sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea ...

. The examination of the site revealed multiple burials in clusters. The burials were in what had been a layer of peat at the bottom of a freshwater pond. Wooden stakes were found associated with the burials. The peat had helped preserve the bones and the wooden stakes. Two of the stakes found at the site yielded

radiocarbon dates Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

of 7,200 years ago, early in the Archaic period in Florida. The burials at the Manasota Key Offshore site resemble those at the

Windover Archeological Site The Windover Archeological Site is a Middle Archaic ( 6000 to 5000 BC) archaeological site and National Historic Landmark in Brevard County near Titusville, Florida, United States, on the central east coast of the state. Windover is a muck pond ...

Little Salt Spring Little Salt Spring is an archaeological and paleontological site in North Port, Florida. The site has been owned by the University of Miami since 1980 with research performed there by the university's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmosphe ...

and other sites of the early Archaic period in Florida. The Manasota Key Offshore site is remarkable in its preservation even though it has been below sea level for close to 7,000 years.

References

* *{{Cite web, url=https://core.tdar.org/document/441856/manasota-key-offshore-a-prehistoric-cemetery-in-the-gulf-of-mexico, title=Manasota Key Offshore: A Prehistoric Cemetery in the Gulf of Mexico, last=Duggins, first=Ryan M., last2=Price, first2=Franklin H., date=2018, website=tDAR, access-date=May 15, 2018, last3=Price, first3=Melissa R., last4=Mollema, first4=Ivor R., last5=Puckett, first5=Neil N. Archaic period in North America Archaeological sites in Florida Underwater archaeological sites