Miami officials voted this week to allow work to continue on new luxury high-rise buildings being developed by one of the city’s billionaire art collectors, even after ancient Indigenous artifacts were discovered dating back thousands of years during construction.
After construction began on three Baccarat-branded luxury towers in Miami’s upscale Bricknell neighborhood, artifacts have been uncovered that archaeologists believe are linked to the Tequesta people, one of the first Native American groups to occupy the area. . Archaeologists have found pottery pieces and bone artifacts at the site, as well as fragments of human remains.
On April 4, the City of Miami’s Historic and Environmental Preservation Council met to determine an action plan in response to the outcry from local residents, including Native American activists and archaeologists. The council voted to allow two of the planned three towers to go up. Council voted to withdraw a proposal that would designate a lot that has already been unearthed as historic if developers prepare an action plan for the site. In another vote, council members approved taking steps to designate a third lot, which has not been excavated, as a landmark.
“This site is significant because it represents…the birthplace of Miami. It is a place, just as it is prime real estate today, it was prime real estate 2,000 years ago “said William Pestle, an anthropologist at the University of Miami. NBCMiami.
The construction site is located near Miami Circle, another ancient archaeological site in Bricknell believed to be the remains of a structure in Tequesta. The site was discovered in 1998 during an excavation before a construction project for two high-rise buildings. The Miami Circle site was named a National Historic Landmark in 2009. According to archaeologists and Miami preservation officials, the development plots currently under debate are comparable importance at Miami Circle.
“If we miss this opportunity to really preserve parts of this site and study the artifacts that have come from it, we are missing the opportunity to fully understand where we come from as a city and as a people,” said said Pestle. NBC.
The site is developed by Related Group, the powerful Miami real estate company founded by the billionaire Jorge M. Perez, a prominent art collector and the namesake of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. He is the CEO and President of the Related Group and has donated millions of dollars to cultural institutions in Miami.
“It was a painstaking process involving hundreds of archaeologists, thousands of hours of work and several million dollars. Despite the great expense and energy, we do this work with pleasure and consider it our responsibility,” Pérez wrote in a Miami Herald editorial from last month. “We will respect and respect all the rules in place to protect [Indigenous] history, but we too have property rights.
Miami archaeologists and developers clashed over the years artifacts found at the sites. Evidence shows that some artifacts could be up to 8,000 years old, which would date them further back than the Great Pyramids of Giza, a claim Pérez disputed.
Pérez wrote that “the primary consensus among city and station officials and councilors is that the finds, to date, are not worth preserving at the site. This means that the artifacts found are not required to remain in the ground,” adding that the archaeological site on his company’s land “is not another circle of Miami”.
Some representatives of Native American groups have proposed stopping all development at the site to show respect for the people buried there.
“It is not acceptable to destroy and desecrate burial places and a sacred site. My position is that this site should be protected and preserved,” said Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee Indians of Florida tribe of the Panther Clan. Hyperallergic in March. “Our ancestors should stay in the ground, and any objects they find should stay in the ground, not be shipped off to museums and universities for study.”
