Secrets of Miami Circle, known as America's Stonehenge, lie buried
The 2,000-year-old site remains under temporary protection laid in 2003.
Maya Bell | Sentinel Staff Writer - January 2, 2008
MIAMI - Nine years ago, an array of American Indians, environmentalists, preservationists, New Age spiritualists, diviners, even Cub Scouts rose up to save the Miami Circle, a 2,000-year-old artifact that many embraced as America's own Stonehenge.
But today, the Circle -- a series of loaf-shaped holes chiseled into the limestone bedrock at the mouth of the Miami River -- is interred beneath bags of sand and gravel, laid over the formation in 2003 to protect it from the elements.
And though taxpayers shelled out $27.6 million to purchase the 38-foot Circle and its surrounding two acres, visitors to the site's planned archaeological park likely will never see the actual work of some of Miami's earliest inhabitants.
"At this point, we don't know a way," said Ryan Wheeler, Florida's state archaeologist. "Maybe in 50 or 100 years archaeologists will have all kinds of technology . . . that we can't imagine today."
The reburial was supposed to be temporary, while officials settled on a plan to manage and display the Circle, which has inspired as many theories about its origin and function as it has claims about its spiritual energy and mystical powers.
Wheeler and other experts who have studied the Circle think the holes were dug by the Tequesta Indians to support wooden posts for a tribal center or other important structure. But it has been theorized to be everything from a celestial observatory to a landing pad for aliens.
Whatever it was, this much is certain: There's nothing like it on the continent. Authenticated as prehistoric, it is on the National Register of Historic Places for the clues it could yield about the complex society developed by the Tequestas, a small tribe foraging in the Everglades and Biscayne Bay before the building of the Parthenon in Athens.
Yet visitors to the park, which won't open for at least a year, will see only an 8-foot replica.
That doesn't sit well with some of the people who fought to wrest the Circle from the hands of a high-rise developer.
"I'll be darned," said Paul George, a Miami historian who will conduct tours of the park for the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. "I thought seeing it was part of the package . . . of preserving it."
Tom Goldstein, the assistant Miami-Dade county attorney who filed the eminent domain suit that derailed plans for two luxury apartment towers on the site, echoed that sentiment.
"I think the whole idea of going to see the Miami Circle is seeing the Miami Circle," he said.
Even Toby Brigham, who negotiated the $27.6 million settlement for developer Michael Baumann, is dismayed.
"Why can't they put it in an air-conditioned, humidified dome and make something nice of it?" Brigham asked.
Solutions out of reach
Through the years, officials considered putting a thatched-roof hut or a clear-plastic shell over the Circle. But as Wheeler watched its holes fill with water from the rising water table, he said he knew, for now, the cost of any display solution was out of reach.
Still, he and other archaeologists insist that, even out of sight, the Circle will retain much of the allure that captivated the world and forced Miami to do something the city has rarely done: save its past from the bulldozers.
"It's like going to a place and seeing a sign, 'George Washington slept here,' " said John Ricisak, Miami-Dade County's archaeologist at the time of the discovery. "You don't need to see George Washington lying in the bed to recognize that something important happened at that spot."
The Circle certainly isn't much to look at. It consists of 24 loaf-shaped basins, each about the size of a sink, and dozens of 4-inch round holes cut into the basins and throughout the Circle interior. Still embedded on one edge is a septic tank from a 1950s apartment complex that stood on the property for five decades.
It was the demolition of those apartments that brought Ricisak and his boss, Bob Carr, to the site on the day the Circle was unearthed in October 1998. As required by local law, the archaeologists had a chance to salvage what they could before Baumann started building his $100 million Brickell Point towers.
The Tequesta had used the site for centuries; the Spanish reported finding them there when they arrived in the early 1500s. Four centuries later, Miami pioneer William H. Brickell built a mansion and trading post on the parcel. Then came the apartments.
So while the archaeologists expected to find artifacts, they doubted any would be intact.
As luck would have it, though, their first test hole unearthed a strange row of cavities in the limestone. Carr knew they were man-made. And the team's surveyor, T.L. Riggs, was certain they were part of a larger circle.
Calculating the center from the arc of the holes, Riggs outlined a perimeter in red spray paint and summoned a backhoe. As the machine clawed its way around the red line, a perfect 38-foot circle emerged.
Theories stir enthusiasm
Immediately, one thought popped into Riggs' mind: Stonehenge. He thought the Circle was a version of the prehistoric stand of large stones in England widely thought to be an astronomical calendar. Riggs was certain it was built by members of an advanced culture who paddled canoes from Mexico or Central America to a new land.
He shared his speculation with the media, setting off a frenzy that ricocheted around the world. Hard evidence would eventually undermine his theory. No artifacts from Mexico or Central America were found. Pottery shards found in the holes were dated at about 2,000 years old and matched those from other known Tequesta sites.
But Riggs' contention galvanized people. Enabled by the Internet and inspired by the approaching millennium, dozens of Save-the-Circle Web sites sprang up. Webcams broadcast live shots. Schoolchildren wrote songs. The state and City Hall were flooded with tens of thousands of faxes and e-mails.
Groups of Native Americans, New Age spiritualists, Caribbean shamans and even Cub Scouts held vigils, chanting, burning incense and beating drums until the county and state agreed to buy the Circle.
Some saw the odd formation as a connection to Miami's lost past. To others, it was sacred ground. Still others insisted that the spirits of their ancestors beckoned to them.
"The public outcry was staggering, and the timing was just right," Wheeler said. "I'm not sure the same thing would happen today."
Yet, nine years later, even with the Circle fenced off and reburied, the state Web site, miami circlesite.com, averages 7,000 hits a month.
And Catherine Hummingbird Ramirez, a self-styled Carib tribal queen, still conducts a purification ceremony there every Tuesday. Waving a smoldering pot of sacred grasses over anyone who shows up, she says she is honoring her ancestors and imbuing visitors with the site's "powerful positive energy." Sometimes, dozens come; sometimes just one.
Lately, her meditations are barely audible over the rumble of cement mixers and cranes building a 56-story condo-hotel next door. It casts a long shadow over the Circle property, but the archaeologist who helped save it finds that fitting.
"That's an incredible statement about the balance between development and preservation," Carr said.
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