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.

Our poster presentation includes background information regarding the history and context around Tristán De Luna’s Spanish settlement attempt in Florida back in the mid-16th century and follows with the notable discovery of carbonized wood and an iron spike within a posthole believed to be contemporary to the activity of the settlement. We discuss why we decided to use C-14 (Carbon-14) radiocarbon dating of the carbonized wood in an attempt to provide evidence to support our hypothesis that the spike was from the settlement and date the spike by association. Charts and graphics showing context from the UWF Archaeology Field School are present throughout the poster. Theories are addressed to respond to the data from the C-14 testing and concluding statements are discussed, lastly on our project followed by the possible leads or avenues of investigations we may postulate from in the future of our research.

Our poster presentation includes background information regarding the history and context around Tristán De Luna’s Spanish settlement attempt in Florida back in the mid-16th century and follows with the notable discovery of carbonized wood and an iron spike within a posthole believed to be contemporary to the activity of the settlement. We discuss why we decided to use C-14 (Carbon-14) radiocarbon dating of the carbonized wood in an attempt to provide evidence to support our hypothesis that the spike was from the settlement and date the spike by association. Charts and graphics showing context from the UWF Archaeology Field School are present throughout the poster. Theories are addressed to respond to the data from the C-14 testing and concluding statements are discussed, lastly on our project followed by the possible leads or avenues of investigations we may postulate from in the future of our research.

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.

This project presents a model similar to that of the Carolina Artifact Pattern, but is built upon the artifact patterns for the 18th Century Spanish Mission settlements with a population of Native Americans in Spanish Florida. Mission San Joseph de Escambe and Nuestra Señora del Rosario de la Punta were selected for the presence of both Spanish and Native populations as well as being contemporaneous. Once the artifacts of both sites were correctly categorized, archaeologists may use the model to gain some insight and expectations of sites similar to these and produce similar interpretations if using the same model. It is the hope that this model will support not only future interpretations of 18th Spanish Mission settlements with Natives but also encourage further studies in this area.