Team to use ground-penetrating radar to search Old Vero Man site at Vero Beach Municipal Airport

VERO BEACH— A team from Mnemotrix Systems Inc. in College Point, Texas, will be in Vero Beach on March 16 to begin testing at the Old Vero Man site, now that the Vero Beach Municipal Airport has issued a license agreement to the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee.

Airport business manager Joe Malfait confirmed Wednesday the agreement will allow Mnemotrix to be on the airport property from March 15 through 22 in an area generally north of the main relief canal, east of Aviation Boulevard and west of U.S. 1. The agreement does not cover any excavation at the site, Malfait said.

Mnemotrix will use ground-penetrating radar as part of the preparation for an excavation at the site next fall by the Old Vero Man committee. The technology uses radar pulses, a form of electromagnetic radiation, to make images of ground subsurfaces. It can detect objects, a change in materials that make up soil layers, voids and disturbances and is nondestructive.

Susan Grandpierre from the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee said that Robert Carr, executive director of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy Inc. of Davie, will accompany the team from Texas as they survey the airport property.

“For us, the site has never really been defined,” said Grandpierre. “This is the most efficient way of surveying the 20 acres. We’re hoping the ground-penetrating radar can get enough information to develop a 3-D image of the site.”

Carr has participated in more than 1,000 archaeological projects throughout Florida, including Miami, Long Key and Okeechobee, and has been working with the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee for several years...

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