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THE SUNSHINE STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
We are pleased and proud to announce the Sunshine State Archaeological Society as the newest chapter of the Central States Archaeological Societies, Inc. Founded in just the past month, the chapter already has approximately members. Special thanks go to Roy McKey of Lawrenceburg, TN, Jack Wilhoit of Lexington, South Carolina, and Carlos Tatum of Tampa, FL, without whose efforts and advice this chapter would not exist.
Florida’s long history of archaeological investigations began in the 1860's with Jeffries Wyman from Harvard’s Peabody Museum who studied several shell middens, followed by the famous Clarence Bloomfield Moore from Philadelphia who, starting in the 1890's, spend many winters directing his work crews in the excavation of most of the major mounds along Florida’s coasts[i]. His work resulted in the well known C. B. Moore books extremely popularly with collectors and archaeology students today. Another pioneer in Florida archaeology was Frank Hamilton Cushing who, in 1896, undertook the excavation of the famous Key Marco site, bringing to light its famous carved and painted wooden artifacts: boxes, masks, statues, trays and bowls.
The last of the early Florida archaeologists was Dr. Jesse Fewkes, sent by the Smithsonian Institution in 1923 to excavate the Weeden Island mounds in Pinellas County. Many government-sponsored WPA archaeology projects were initiated in the 1930's and in 1946 the Florida Park Service, under the direction of John W. Griffin, established a statewide archaeological survey program. This program was discontinued in 1953, but it was followed by the Florida State Museum (today called the Florida Museum of Natural History) which took over the role of archaeological leadership in Florida, for the most part due to the efforts of Ripley Pierce Bullen, a Park Service archaeologist under Griffin who was the curator of the Florida State Museum for 17 years. He authored hundreds of publications on Florida archaeology, one of the most important being his Guide to the Identification of Florida Projectile Points (Kendall Books, Gainesville, 1975) which established the types for Florida points and which remains the best descriptive type book today.
Other individuals who contributed greatly to the establishment of archeological research in Florida was John M. Goggin, head of the archaeological department at the University of Florida, Gordon R. Willey, Charles H. Fairbanks, William H. Sears, Clarence Simpson, and Ben Waller. Waller was an avocational archaeologist and paleontologist who pioneered underwater investigations in Florida’s rivers. He taught the professionals first how to dive and then showed them where to look in the springs and rivers, and finally, what to look for. He made believers out of those who doubted the existence of early man kill sites and has the Waller Knife and the Titanis walleri (huge, extinct, flightless bird) named for him.
Florida, located in the extreme southeast corner of the US, is blessed with a unique and abundant archaeological history, likely due in part to the warm climate while northern areas were experiencing severe weather during the ice age. While sparsely represented in Wormington’s important early man work in 1957,[ii] the state today is known for its rich Paleoindian manifestations, good examples being the Harney Flats site[iii] in Hillsborough County and certain areas along the Santa Fe River drainage which have produced very high concentrations of Paleo artifacts. At the close of the Pleistocene period, Florida was much drier than today, with its Gulf of Mexico shoreline found at least 100 miles farther west of its present location. Where today there is flowing water, 10,000 years ago humans had established many workshops and dwelling areas. Many early man artifacts are collected in Florida’s rivers, creeks, springs and sinks, scattered abundantly mostly from the central part of the state on north. The state’s progressive Isolated Finds Program permits amateur collectors to salvage these from state-owned submerged lands. This program benefits both the amateur and the professional – allowing the finder to keep the artifact and the state to gain the information. There are also several documented sites of interaction between the Paleoindian and different types of Holocene megafauna, including horse, mastodon, mammoth, llama, sloth and giant land tortoise. Atlatl foreshafts from Florida made from mammoth ivory and decorated by carving may be the earliest examples of artwork known from the United States.
The most abundant prehistoric site type found all over Florida is the Archaic period, running roughly from 7500 B.C. to 500 B.C. During this period pottery and the bow and arrow were introduced and lithic technology advanced with the discovery of heat treating. One of the best preserved and most important sites from this period is Windover[iv] in Brevard County, dating from about seven to eight thousand years ago. Here 91 of the 176 burials retrieved from a peat bog yielded brain tissue, which resulted in the oldest human DNA samples in existence. Because of the protection of the peat and muck, many bone, wood and plant artifacts were recovered from Windover, which contributed greatly to our knowledge of the peoples of this period.
Florida is geologically unique because of the abundance of agatized coral found in the central and north central parts of the state. This stone is often very colorful and may become especially so when heat treated, frequently resulting in brilliant shades of red, orange, purple, white and yellow. Even the white colors are often translucent. When the stone is cut (knapped) parallel to the polyp grain, colored stripes may be visible in the material, and when cut across the grain, the material may exhibit a honeycomb appearance. Prehistoric cultures, especially the Middle Archaic peoples, utilized this material extensively for their chipped stone implements, and the colorful material, combined with the advanced knapping technology and somewhat stylized point types such as the Hillsborough, occasionally resulted in some of the most beautiful chipped artifacts in existence.
Heat treated coral was used less by the Woodland and Late Period groups after the Late Archaic period. They began building mounds before 500 B.C. and these are found throughout Florida. Agriculture became prevalent during this period and two examples of highly developed societies are the Weedon Island sites and the famous Tick Island[v] site in Volusia County. Again, due to its geographical location, Florida was among the earliest regions of the U.S. explored by the Europeans, which was the beginning of the end for the native populations in Florida. Early Spanish expeditions in the 16th century included those of Ponce de Leon, Narváez, and De Soto. Spanish missions were established westward from St. Augustine into the Florida panhandle, but by the mid 18th century, most of the native Florida peoples had perished, leaving the Seminoles to settle in different parts of the state. With the defeat of this group in the Second Seminole War (1835-42) Florida’s long history of native peoples was brought to a close.
The Sunshine State Archaeology Society is grateful to the CSASI for the opportunity to become a member of their fine organization, and also to Rusty Bradley and Chris Hart for designing and producing the chapter logo, which features a Bolen, a Suwannee, and a Hillsborough projectile point as best representing the many point types and archaeological periods in Florida.
Notes:
[i]. Much of the information in this article was taken from the Florida Anthropological Society’s bulletin titled “Florida Archaeology, an Overview,” Glen H. Doran, et.al. n.d.
[ii]. H. M. Wormington, Ancient Man in North America. Denver Museum of Natural History Popular Series No. 4, Denver, 1957.
[iii]. See Randolph Daniel, Jr., and Michael Wisenbaker, Harney Flats: a Florida Paleo-Indian Site. Baywood Publishing, Farmingdale, N.Y. 1987.
[iv]. For a brief overview, go to http://www.nbbd.com/godo/history/windover.
[v]. See Barbara A. Purdy, Indian Art of Ancient Florida. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1996. This work contains many excellent photographs by Roy C. Craven, Jr. of ancient works of art, many from the Tick Island site.