YSU student Hannah Scarazzo participates in Bahamas archaeological dig

2016 Apr 6

Youngstown State University Geography and Anthropology major Hannah Scarazzo of Youngstown, Ohio, recently took part in a seven-day excavation on the Fresh Lake Archaeological Site on San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.

Along with nine other YSU students and faculty Tom Delvaux of Anthropology and Ron Shaklee of Geography, Scarazzo engaged in the excavation of a prehistoric site at Fresh Lake, once home to the Lucayan Indians, who inhabited the Bahamas in pre-Columbian times.

Shaklee, who has been taking students to San Salvador over spring break since 1988, said the group uncovered cultural items such as pottery and finely made shell beads, and also found food items such as animal and fish bones.

The most significant discovery was a fragment of a flint stone axe. Shaklee said flint is not a naturally occurring element in the Bahamas. The closest source of flint is in continental areas of North America; therefore, discoveries of flint tools are rare in the Bahamas. This is only the fifth piece of flint recovered by YSU archaeologists since they started excavations on San Salvador in 1996. It is, by far, the largest and most impressive flint piece found by archaeologists working on San Salvador.