Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Using drone technology, a team of UF researchers has uncovered an ancient and rare pre-Columbian Florida village.
In research led by anthropology Ph.D. student Terry Barbour, the team equipped with the drone with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) scanners, quickly collected architectural details and topographic data with unprecedented resolution.
The researchers discovered that the settlement on Raleigh Island, located on the northern Gulf coast of Florida around 900–1200 AD, operated as a major producer of beads made from seashells.
The beads, used in rituals at the time, were highly prized in communities as far from the coast as the lower Midwest.