Geoff and others,
Here is the article in the Washington Post.  Douglas
 
Puzzling Circle Unearthed Beneath Downtown Miami
One Theory: Holes in Stone Are Mayan Celestial Calendar
By Jim Loney
Reuters
Saturday, December 26, 1998; Page A03
 
MIAMI In the shadows of this modern city's gleaming towers, under the
remains of a blighted apartment block, archaeologists digging through
the rubble of centuries have uncovered a mysterious circle in stone.
 
The circle, formed of dozens of holes bored into the limestone bedrock
with rudimentary tools and located just a few steps from the mouth of
the Miami River, is a startling window into Florida's pre-Columbian
history in the heart of a bustling metropolis, archaeologists say.
 
A cache of artifacts -- including shells, beads and pottery shards --
has persuaded some experts that the circle is likely the foundation of a
Tequesta Indian building at the site of one of Miami's first trading
posts founded by northern settlers.
 
But another, more intriguing theory also has been advanced: That the
circle is a celestial calendar, perhaps made by a breakaway band of
Mayas, the sophisticated Central American Indians who lived in the
Yucatan, Belize and northern Guatemala.
 
"It looks like Stonehenge in negative. Instead of stones -- holes," said
T. L. Riggs, a surveyor who has studied Mayan culture.
 
Whatever the relic turns out to be -- the site was uncovered in August
and researchers are in the initial stages of identifying and dating the
artifacts -- it is a vision of Florida past in the bedrock of a city
built on glitter.
 
"It has generated more questions than answers," said Bob Carr, an
archaeologist and director of Miami-Dade County's Historic Preservation
Division, which is heading the archaeological dig at the site.
 
Historians expected to find Indian artifacts when bulldozers moved in to
demolish the old Brickell Apartments and prepare the site for a new
luxury tower. The patch of land at the mouth of the Miami River was
known to have been a homestead and trading post for the Brickell family,
early Miami settlers, in the 1870s.
 
The site lies in the shadow of a Sheraton hotel and is a stone's throw
across the narrow river from a Hyatt hotel erected on the site of a
Tequesta village. The native Indians inhabited the region when Ponce de
Leon, the Spanish explorer, landed in Florida in 1513 seeking the
Fountain of Youth. The Tequesta all but vanished because of war and
disease following the arrival of the Europeans.
 
This summer, when the diggers scraped bedrock through a thick layer of
landfill and midden -- the black earth formed from the refuse of
previous occupants -- they uncovered a series of man-made holes in the
form of an arc.
 
Riggs extrapolated the arc, etching a circle on the ground where he
expected the rest of it might lie under the dirt. A backhoe dug along
the outline and more holes emerged in the form of a perfect circle 38
feet in diameter.
 
The mysterious circle survived the construction of the Brickell
Apartments unmarred. Work crews buried a septic tank in the middle of
the circle without touching the holes. A sewer pipe sits beside the
southern point.
 
"Nothing like this has ever been found in south Florida," said John
Ricisak, a Miami-Dade historic preservation specialist who has worked at
the site for months. "To my knowledge, if it is the foundation of a
Tequesta structure of some sort, it would be the first hard evidence of
one that's ever been documented archaeologically."
 
Although Ricisak and Carr believe the site is likely Tequesta, Ricisak
said the celestial calendar theory would not be "as far out as it might
seem."
 
"It would not be unprecedented," he said. "In the Old World, for
example, there was Stonehenge."
 
Riggs, who spent years living in Central America and studying the Maya,
theorizes that a group of Maya may have made their way to the U.S.
mainland through the Florida Keys hundreds of years ago. Some of the
holes in the circle were meticulously cut into the shapes of marine
creatures, such as the manatee, turtle and dolphin, he said.
 
"This is unique in the world. I don't think anyone has ever discovered
where glyphs have been carved into the ground," he said. "There will be
a lot of doubters. This would be the first evidence of the Maya in
Florida."
 
But Michael Coe, a Yale University professor and leading expert on Mayan
culture, downplayed the likelihood that the circle is Mayan.
 
"I think the chances against it are tremendous. There has never been any
Mayan artifact found in Florida," Coe said. "The Maya really stayed put.
They never got up into the United States. There is no hard evidence that
they went to the [Caribbean] islands."
 
Researchers have a number of puzzles to solve, Ricisak said. Stones
appear to have been carefully placed in the holes at the eastern,
western and southern points of the circle.
 
Large quantities of flint and two ax heads fashioned from basalt were
found at the site. Neither occurs naturally in south Florida, and the
two closest sources of basalt, a volcanic rock, are the Appalachian
Mountains of eastern North America and the highlands of Guatemala, a
site of Mayan settlements.
 
But Coe said the Maya did not use basalt. "They had much better stuff
than that," he said.
 
Carr suspects that the circle may have been the foundation for posts
that formed the structure of an "upper-level, elitist-type [Tequesta]
house, a chief perhaps."
 
"We know that they could create structures," he said. "I find it
difficult to believe that it's actually a calendar. But I don't have a
hard time believing some knowledge of astronomy figured into the
construction."
 
Carr points to the backbone of a shark perfectly preserved within the
circle. "The shark has its head to the west and tail to the east, very
much the way the Indians would put a human in the ground," he said.
 
Developers plan to build a 600-unit luxury tower on the property. The
company did not return calls for comment. Despite the site's potential
historic significance, Florida law would allow officials to halt
construction only if the site turned out to be an ancient burial ground.
 
"From the developer's point of view, it might be their worst nightmare,"
Carr said. "If unmarked human graves are discovered, they are protected
by the state."
 
 
) Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company