Charlotte Harbor Nature Festival November 21st, Port Charlotte

Meet the FPAN staff and many other organizations at the Charlotte Harbor Nature Festival on November 21st, 10am-3pm in Port Charlotte! Charlotte County Sports Complex, 2300 El Jobean Rd, Port Charlotte, FL.

http://www.chnep.org/Events/CHNF/CHNF.htm

Calusa Blueway Paddling Festival October 24

Visit the Southwest Regional Center at Mound House on Saturday October 24, 10:00am-4:00, as Mound House will be a hub location for the Calusa Blueway Paddling Festival - food, fun, and information!

http://www.calusabluewaypaddlingfestival.com/

The Randell Research Center will be the home of another hub the following Saturday, October 31st!

SWFAS Lecture on Crystal River by Richard Estabrook in Bonita Springs, October 21

Richard Estabrook, Director of the Florida Public Archaeology Network center at the Crystal River Preserve State Park speaks at the October meeting of the Southwest Florida Archaeological Society in Bonita Springs. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Bonita Springs Community Center at 27381 Old U.S. 41.

Come early at 7 p.m. for snacks. The lecture is free.

The Hopewell Interaction Sphere was a phenomenon that engulfed the entire Eastern and Central Woodlands areas. Best expressed by exotic and carefully crafted works of stone, metal, shell, and minerals often found in Woodland (500 BC to AD 200) burial contexts, it has been the subject of much speculation. Some have characterized it as interregional trade, some as a shared religious cult, others as a series of mortuary practices involving elaborate burial mounds and rituals. It may well be all three and more.

This talk will discuss the Hopewellian artifacts recovered from the famous Crystal River site in coastal Citrus County and discuss how large coastal sites may have acted as "gateways" for the movement of these goods and ideas from the heartland of North America out to sites deep in the Florida's interior.

Richard Estabrook has been involved with Florida archaeology since 1981. He holds degrees in Anthropology and History from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (now Stony Brook University), Applied Anthropology (Public Archaeology) from the University of South Florida and a graduate certificate in Geographic Information Systems from USF. Since 1986, Richard has focused on private sector applications for Cultural Resource Management firms and government agencies. He is currently ABD in his Ph.D. research at USF where he is employed as the Director of the Florida Public Archaeology Network Center at the Crystal River Preserve State Park.

SWFAS meets on the third Wednesday of the month in Bonita Springs. You can learn more about SWFAS at http://www.explorationsinc.com/swfl-archaeology/index.html.