Florida was an archaeological terra incognita in 1900 at the time of Frank Hamilton Cushing's death. He had no predecessors on the Gulf Coast from Charlotte Harbor to Key Marco. What he saw and did in 1895-96 was being prepared with the help of a secretary in an original manuscript of 708 typed half-pages at the time of his death.

The manuscript was buried for over a century in the archives of the Smithsonian National in Washington D.C. The archaeological richness of Southwest Florida and his brilliant work here 100 years ago seemed doomed to be forgotten until Phyllis Kolianos found it recently while looking for something. Her discovery has titillated the academic community.

"The late nineteenth century was a time of great intellectual flowering, and Frank Hamilton Cushing bloomed along with his contemporaries. His genius and scholarship are apparent once again with the publication of this lost manuscript. How fortunate for Florida that Cushing arrived on the Gulf Coast in the 1890s and recorded everything that 'his eyes beheld.' His vivid descriptions of the environment and its inhabitants furnish a mental picture of a time and place that have long since vanished," wrote Barbara A. Purdy on the jacket of the book. Purdy is professor emerita, University of Florida, and curator emerita, of the Florida Museum of Natural History.

"Frank Cushing's long-lost archaeological manuscript adds important details on the Hope and Safford mounds as well as a host of other coastal sites in Southwest Florida. It also firmly established Cushing as an important and innovative anthropological archaeologist whose methods and techniques were well ahead of his time," added William H. Marquardt, curator in archaeology, Florida Museum of Natural History. Dr. Marquardt will speak on Marco Island in the December lecture series, details to be announced.

The editors, Kolianos and Weisman, "were struck by the immediacy of his comprehension of the inextricable relationships between ancient cultures and the environments in which they lived. His manuscript presents keen observations of the region's vegetation and terrain, including clear descriptions of its sinkhole system, underground aquifer, and archaeological sites that existed prior to extensive development.

"The work culminates in Cushing's impressive attempt to connect the prehistoric civilizations of Florida, the American Southwest, Mexico, the Yucatan, and the Mississippi valley into one massive "continental arc' of culture."

Phyllis E. Kolianos is environmental education manager at Florida's Weedon Island Preserve cultural and Natural History Center. Brent Wiseman is a well-known and often published archaeologist and a professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida.

The Marco Island Historical Society welcomes Kolianos in her second appearance on the island. The public is invited to attend with light refreshments being served.