The city of St. Augustine archaeologist says he will work with the state to protect three prehistoric human burials that were discovered at a site in downtown. The Florida American Indian Movement and the American-Indian Right Network of St. Augustine are worried, though, that the city is refusing to protect or manage a site that has remains of a Timucan village.

"Nobody's going to dig up my great-great-grandfather," Diane Casagrande, of the American Indian Movement Support Group in St. Petersburg, told the St. Augustine City Commission Monday.

"It's at best disrespectful and at worst criminal," she added.

At the City Commission meeting this week, commissioners assured the American Indian groups that the site was not being "desecrated."

The city has some bones from one of the remains that were accidentally unearthed with a back hoe while digging at the site, said Mark Knight, city planning and building department director. The other two burial sites were left untouched.

The city is working with the property owner, Craig Marlowe, to send a plan to the state of how the burial sites will be preserved. This is a procedure required by the state.

"We don't want to put the bones back that we have because we don't know what (Marlowe) is going to do with the site, yet," Knight said.

Marlowe had intended to sell the property.

Glenda Bailey-Mershon, a supporter of the American-Indian Right Network, said the group would have to see the plan first before they could back it.

The state has roughly $2 million to purchase property with archaeological significance, which the American Indian groups said they want used to buy Marlowe's property.

Although Halbirt has said the site is the most significant prehistoric archaeological find ever made in St. Augustine, he says it might not be the most important site in the state. And it likely is not worthy of a state purchase.

"There's all sorts of sites up and down the Intracoastal that are just like this site, probably," Halbirt said. "The question is, is this site unique? That's going to be the state's call."

State Archaeologist Ryan Wheeler said Halbirt's assessment of the site has heavily influenced the state.

"It would be tough for us to go in front of the governor and his cabinet and support (the purchase of the property) if the archaeologist who worked on it didn't think it was significant enough," Wheeler said.

Bailey-Mershon said the American Network is continuing to work on preserving the site, but she could not comment further.

"We are proceeding in different directions," she said. "There are a lot of people concerned about this."

Marlowe, the property owner, said that the city has told him his property "contains no unique features or deposits, and what was there has been excavated, that the site is not appropriate for inclusion in the State or National Registers."

He added that if anyone believes the site should be preserved, "We would be open to market value offers."

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