The screening was essential.

The peat matrix surrounding the burials was a biological archive: it contained seeds, plant fragments, insect remains, fish bones, and other material that would reveal the environment the Windover people inhabited.

Losing that context by careless removal would have meant losing irreplaceable ecological and dietary information.

The work was slow, labor-intensive, and physically demanding.

Excavating in a dewatered peat pond in central Florida — hot, humid, working in close quarters, handling material that required constant attention — was not the romantic version of archaeology that popular imagination constructs.

It was careful, repetitive, wet work, carried out by a team that included Doran and his colleague David Dickel and a rotating cast of students, specialists, and volunteers.