Where the Avon Park range’s archaeological collections are, and the state they were in

Avon Park Air Force Range holds the largest and least known archaeological landscape in Highlands County — 136 recorded sites over a quarter of its acreage, running from the late Paleo-Indian period to the Second World War. This bundle has recorded repeatedly that the material is hard to reach.

A federal survey has already said where it is. Between September 1993 and May 1995 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections surveyed the archaeological holdings of forty-two Air Combat Command installations. Avon Park Air Force Range was one of twelve where collections were actually found.[dtic-curation]

Three collections, three places

Avon Park accounted for three distinct collections and four reports, held across three repositories:[dtic-curation]

1. Avon Park Air Force Range itself. Material stored in Building 475 and in the Environmental Flight Annex. The survey’s own photographs show the range’s collection “stored in metal cabinets next to biological specimens,” a damaged primary container, a mixture of secondary containers packed together with the box inventory, and one box-inventory page rendered virtually unintelligible by insect damage.

2. JANUS Research, the archaeological contractor. The bulk of the Avon Park collection — 54 boxes — was in a rented commercial storage space, on plastic sectional shelves, the artefacts in two-mil zip-lock bags, with the firm’s retired records stored alongside. Associated documentation and camera-ready report pages were kept in manila folders.

3. The University of South Florida, Tampa, in the Social Sciences Building. Type and special collections in locking wooden cabinets, bulk collections on homemade wooden shelves, artefacts in acidic paper bags labeled directly in marker, and photographic materials with no special arrangements at all.

What the survey concluded

Across all the installations it examined, the assessment found “evidence documenting the widespread deterioration and neglect of many ACC archaeological collections,” and reported that all collections require at least partial rehabilitation. It was conducted against 36 CFR Part 79, the 1991 federal regulation setting minimum standards for the care of federally owned archaeological collections.[dtic-curation]

Why this matters to Avon Park

Three practical things follow.

The material exists and is findable. Anyone wanting to know what has been dug up on the range does not have to start with the range’s public affairs office. There are named repositories, and one of them is a state university.

Much of it was in a storage unit. Fifty-four boxes of the archaeology of this county sat in rented commercial storage in the mid-1990s. Whether they were moved afterwards, and where to, is the first question to ask.

The survey is thirty years old. It describes conditions in 1993-95 and recommended corrective action. What happened next is unknown here, and the range’s Cultural Resources Management office should know.

What to ask, and of whom

1. Avon Park Air Force Range, Cultural Resources Management — what became of the collections in Building 475 and the Environmental Flight Annex, and were the corrective actions carried out?
2. JANUS Research — where did the fifty-four boxes go?
3. The University of South Florida, Tampa, Department of Anthropology — what Avon Park range material does it still hold, and can it be consulted?

None of these is a records request. They are three telephone calls.

References

• dtic-curation — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections. An Archaeological Curation-Needs Assessment for Headquarters Air Combat Command, Volume 1. 1996. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA327533

Related

• Entity: Avon Park Air Force Range
• Finding: barriers to Highlands County archaeology
• Report: Indigenous presence on the Lake Wales Ridge

Where this comes from

Evidence

single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.

Review

unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.

Rights

society

Sources

1. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections, An Archaeological Curation-Needs Assessment for Headquarters Air Combat Command, Volume 1 (1996)

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