Dr. John E Worth

We conduct a synthetic archaeological and ethnohistoric dating program to assess the timing and tempo of the spread of peaches, the first Eurasian domesticate to be adopted across Indigenous eastern North America, into the interior American Southeast by Indigenous communities who quickly " Indi-genized " the fruit. In doing so, we present what may be the earliest absolute dates for archaeological contexts containing preserved peach pits in what is today the United States in the early to mid-16 th century. Along with our broader chronological modeling, these early dates suggest that peaches were likely in the interior prior to permanent Spanish settlement in the American Southeast and that peaches spread independently of interactions with Spanish coloni-zers. We further argue that that eventual spread of peaches was structured exclusively by Indigenous communities and the ecologies produced through long-term Indigenous land management and land use practices, highlighting and centering the agency of Indigenous societies in the socioecological process of colonization.

Spanish Olive Jar is a ubiquitous marker of the Spanish colonial period in the southeastern United States, appearing on both terrestrial and maritime sites where colonists resided and traveled between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Olive Jar ceramic type has been the subject of many archaeological studies, most of which use vessel shape typologies and rim morphology to aid in the chronological placement of sites and proveniences where they are found, and more recently also using compositional analyses to determine locations of manufacture. Frequently lacking, however, is anything more than a cursory generic reference to what these vessels were likely to have originally contained, and how exactly they were used and reused by the people who lived and worked at the archaeological sites where their remains are so commonly found. The intent of this article is to explore primary source documents that provide quantifiable data to answer such questions, with the goal of enhancing the utility of Spanish Olive Jar for archaeological interpretation by situating it within its broader functional context as one of a number of different types of shipping containers used and reused in a variety of circumstances during the Spanish colonial period.

The town of Potano, refenced in sixteenth-century and in early seventeenth-century Spanish accounts of the exploration and settlement of the Southeast, is one of the named sites associated with the Hernando de Soto entrada that possesses sufficient documentary and archaeological evidence that would allow for its firm identification. The Richardson site, 8AL100, has long been known as a site which has both an early seventeenth-century Spanish and a late precontact/early contact Native American component. We contend, based on the documentary and archaeological evidence, that the Richardson site is the location of the early contact and mission-period town of Potano, and that claims made concerning the White Ranch site, 8MR3538, cannot be substantiated or verified.

During the 1940s and 1950s, both US and Cuban archaeologists noted striking similarities between decorated pottery of the Glades region of Florida and that of central Cuba. In explaining these similarities, Cuban archaeologist Rene Herrera Fritot went farthest in suggesting an Antillean origin for peoples of the Glades region. This chapter revisits the question on the basis of improved descriptions and chronologies of cultural phenomena in both areas. With current archaeological evidence, the Glades tradition and the Cantabria tradition are separated in time by two centuries at minimum. When viewed in the proper temporal context, therefore, ceramic traditions from South Florida and Cuba appear to have essentially nothing in common, providing no reason to posit any degree of direct or sustained cultural contact across the Florida Straits during the Glades tradition time frame.

Missions have long been recognized as a fundamental aspect of the colonial experience in Spanish Florida. However, missions were the primary mechanism by which Florida became the first European-Indian colonial society in southeastern North America. This pivotal role evolved over time and is discussed in three broad phases. Under this three-phase model, Spanish missionaries first entered the indigenous landscape as a footnote to exploratory ventures by the military, having little interaction with the indigenous tribes. By the latter part of the century and extending into the early eighteenth century, the success of the Franciscan order led to a second phase in which indigenous tribes were converted in whole or in part to Christianity, missions were constructed, and both subsistence and spiritual support were provided to the native populations. In the third phase, this support largely vanished as European politics whittled away and then destroyed the mission system. The Southeastern Indians largely became wards of the Spanish state, dependent on the Spanish for subsistence and military protection.

Following the fortuitous 2015 discovery of a substantial assemblage of mid-16th-century Spanish ceramics in a residential neighborhood overlooking the Emanuel Point shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay, the University of West Florida Archaeology Institute worked with more than 120 landowners to conduct extensive archaeological testing across a broad area in order to determine the boundaries of and to explore the site. This article compares documentary and archaeological evidence to confirm the identification of the roughly 13–15 ha site as Tristán de Luna y Arellano’s 1559–1561 settlement,making it the largest mid-16th-century Spanish colonial site in the Southeast and the earliest multiyear European settlement in the entire United States.

Después del descubrimiento fortuito en 2015 de un conjunto sustancial de cerámica española de mediados del siglo 16 en un vecindario residencial con vistas a los naufragios de Emanuel Point en la Bahía de Pensacola, el Instituto de Arqueología de la Universidad de West Florida trabajó con más de 120 propietarios para realizar pruebas arqueológicas exhaustivas en un área amplia para determinar los límites y explorar el sitio. Este artículo compara la evidencia documental y arqueológica para confirmar la identificación del sitio de aproximadamente 13–15 ha como el asentamiento de Tristán de Luna y Arellano de 1559–1561, convirtiéndolo en el sitio colonial español más grande de mediados del siglo 16 en el sudeste y el primer asentamiento europeo de varios años en todo el territorio de Estados Unidos.

À la suite de la découverte fortuite en 2015 d'un assemblage considérable de céramiques espagnoles datant de la moitié du 16ème siècle dans un quartier résidentiel surplombant l'épave du Emanuel Point à Pensacola Bay, l'lnstitut d'archéologie de l'Université de Floride occidentale a collaboré avec plus de 120 propriétaires terriens afin de conduire de vastes opérations de tests archéologiques à travers une large zone, visant à déterminer les limites du site et à en faire l'exploration. Cet article compare des preuves documentaires et archéologiques afin de confirmer l'identification du site d'environ 13 à 15 hectares comme étant la colonie implantée en 1559 et 1561 désignée sous le nom de Tristán de Luna y Arellano. Ceci en ferait le site colonial espagnol le plus important dans le Sud-Ouest à la moitié du 16ème siècle et la toute première colonie européenne active durant plusieurs années pour tous les États-Unis.