THE RETICENT ARCHAEOLOGIST UNLEASHEDtells the story of Mike Wisenbaker’s half-century-plus life journey, focusing mostly on the past fifty years. Although he is not famous (or infamous) enough to call for an exhaustive, in-depth autobiography, he’s traveled down some captivating and challenging paths.
He reveals many morsels about the mid-twentieth century to the present zeitgeist through the eyes of a baby boomer trained and groomed as an anthropologist and historian. He peppers his book with insights from archaeology, anthropology, conservation, history, natural history and human behavior. This chronicle also delves into his varied pastimes, such as diving (both cave and reef), paddling, surfing, sailing, mountain biking, hiking, fishing and hunting. As for diving, he served as the publicist and historian for the Woodville Karst Plain Project-one of the world’s foremost underwater cave exploration teams-for twenty years.
The book’s main thrust covers how a non-academic archaeologist coped with a never-ending roller coaster of real-world vagaries. The story begins with his humble origins, which led him down some unexpected and sinuous paths.
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Mike grew up in Tallahassee and graduated from Florida State University with B.S. and M.A. degrees in anthropology. He’s retired from the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research. He worked on a shipwreck (the Nuestra Senora de Atocha) off Key West, the Harney Flats Paleoindian site (documented in book published by the University Press of Florida) outside Tampa, and many other archaeological and historical sites in Florida and the Southeast. He also represented the Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources on the Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever programs for twenty years.Beyond his career in archaeology and history, his passions include natural history, photography, writing and (cave and reef) diving as well as many other outdoor pursuits covered in the book. Wisenbaker also served as the publicist and historian for the world-renowned Woodville Karst Plain Project (an elite underwater cave exploration team) for twenty years.