Sifting through history: Calusa artifacts found in SWFL

PINE ISLAND, Fla. (AP) An archaeological team has discovered thousand-year-old Calusa Indian rope, net and twine, among other finds, in Southwest Florida.

No one has seen remnants of ancient daily life like this since the 1800s when a Smithsonian expedition led by pioneering anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing unearthed more than 1,000 remarkably well-preserved artifacts, The News-Press reports.

The team has made its discoveries over the past two weeks on Pine Island.

Some of the more extraordinary things to emerge from the Pine Island pit are pieces of netting, complete with tied-on weights.

Such remnants add to scientists’ ongoing understanding of the people who called Southwest Florida home for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the 1500s.