'A window into the past'

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Sergio A. Gamboa
  • 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  With a gust of wind blowing and a light chill in the air, layers of forest and plants lie between an archeologist team and a path, marked with bright yellow and pink ribbons, identifying their next dig site.

With a shovel, they dig the soft moist soil and roots on the ground, stopping at a depth of approximately one meter, hoping to find any type of evidence of past cultures or items of historic value.

The Prentice Thomas and Associates team, from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., are hoping to find what they call "flakes." A flake can be a piece of pottery, weapon or a type of tool. They could be as small as a penny or even bigger, but it only takes one flake for the four-person team to decide to dig more survey holes around the area.

"After finding the flakes, we return to that location, and we delineate the site and dig more holes," said Bret Kent, PTA field director. "The first holes are just to find out where the sites are, then we go back and do more intensive digging, where we sample the area and find out how big the site is, how deep the recovery is and try to find any intact features."

Most days the team is surveying holes, nothing is found, but when they find interesting items it's like opening a window into the past. A couple of weeks ago they found a dart point estimated to be a few thousand years old.

"Tyndall has a rich history of digging sites," said Benjamin Aubuchon, 325th Civil Engineering Squadron Natural Resources cultural resources program coordinator. "There are at least six burial mounds, various Native American village sites, an assortment of pioneer-era towns and several World War II structures."

There are more than 160 archeological sites on Tyndall, 68 of which are defined as eligible or potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The register is the official Federal list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering and culture worthy of preservation, according to the National Park Service website.

"Our company does site eligibility determinations based on the information that we find," Kent said. "We make a determination as to how much research potential there is at a site and weather the research done there could add to the historic knowledge we have at that area."

The company has had a standing relationship with Tyndall for more than 30 years. For this mission, the team has been trying to expand the boundaries of sites to be registered in the NRHP.

On one site, the team was able to expand the area from 50 by 50 meters to about 400 by 400 meters, said Kent.

If an area meets certain requirements, then it will become protected and eligible to be on the NRHP.