Late Prehistoric Florida: Archaeology at the Edge of the Mississippian World

6. The Alachua of North-Central Florida

6 The Alachua of North-Central Florida Vicki Rolland North-central Florida was home to the sixteenth-century Potano Timucua, who,accordingtoEuropeandocuments,weremaizefarmersorganizedinto simple chiefdoms (Hann 1996; Worth 1998a). From an archaeological perspective the Potano and their precolumbian predecessors are represented by the Alachua culture. Despite possessing two primary characteristics of Mississippi-period societies of the interior Southeast, the Alachua were far from archetypical Mississippian farmers and temple-mound builders. Rather, archaeological data are more suggestive of a Late Woodland way of life with a simple material culture inventory, a strong reliance on hunting and gathering, and a lack of obvious social stratification, nonlocal funerary goods, and monumental architecture. As such, the Alachua appear to have had a lifestyle similar to that of Suwannee Valley peoples immediately to their north. For that region, Worth (1998a, 2002, and chapter 7, this volume) has drawn upon Spanish documentary evidence to support the existence of a chiefly sociopolitical organization at contact, although material correlates for such a society are lacking. The same is true for the Alachua archaeological record. At this time archaeologists have yet to recognize any Mississippian characteristics within the Alachua culture, including evidence for elite involvement in far-flung exchange networks. The absence of exotic stone or copper is noteworthy considering the fact that such materials have been recovered in earlier Woodland-period Cades Pond contexts and from contemporaneous Safety Harbor and St. Johns sites to the west and east, respectively . However, the presence of Safety Harbor and St. Johns wares in Alachua contexts indicates interactions with those neighboring societies. Their strongest relations, however, appear to have been with groups immediately to the north and northwest in the Suwannee Valley area. ◀◆◆◆▶ The Alachua of North-Central Florida · 127 Early Alachua groups (ca. A.D. 900–1250) formed the southern end of a geographical band of cord-marked pottery-making people that stretched from north-central Florida to the central Savannah River valley of Georgia and South Carolina. The overall structure and nature of sites across this area of the Southeast are strikingly similar, and their distribution appears to reflect the dispersal of regionally based Woodland foragers (Ashley 2005d; Stephenson 1990). No evidence exists at this time for elite individuals or kin groups having been involved in Mississippian exchange. Current information further suggests that maize farming did not become a conspicuous aspect of the Alachua economy until the mid-fifteenth century , a situation that may have fostered the eventual emergence of chiefly leaders, as described in early historic documents. This chapter focuses on the Alachua culture prior to European contact and presents an updated overview and assessment of current research. The North-Central Florida Environment Alachua and Marion counties form the heartland of the triangular-shaped Alachua culture region (figure 6.1), although both Prairie Cord Marked and Alachua Cob Marked pottery are found over a far broader area (Austin 2001; Brown et al. 1990; Johnson 1987; Kohler 1991). None of the Alachua boundary lines is distinct; rather, they are dotted in along geographical formations. To the north, sites within the Santa Fe River drainage system contain mixtures of Alachua and Suwannee Valley pottery types, suggesting that it served as a buffer zone between those two similar cultures (Milanich 1994: 332; Worth, chapter 7, this volume). To the east and southeast , the broad St. Johns River basin divided the Alachua and St. Johns culture areas. Throughout this basin, archaeologists find sites with pottery assemblages consisting of both Alachua sand- and grit-tempered wares and distinctive St. Johns sponge-spicule-tempered ceramics. The recovery of St. Johns pottery actually begins well within the eastern boundary of the Alachua area and increases in frequency the closer sites lie to the river. Although at times the Alachua may have shared access to abundant riverine resources with their eastern neighbors, in the early historic period the Potano (Alachua) and Outina (St. Johns) were at war (Worth, chapter 7, this volume). Alachua’s western boundary also is vague and seemingly based more on the paucity of Safety Harbor settlements located away from the coastal strand (Mitchem, chapter 8, this volume). This region is either extremely swampy or extremely dry and offered Alachua and Safety 128 · Vicki Rolland Figure 6.1. Location of Alachua heartland and greater distribution of Alachua ceramics (oval line). Harbor peoples fewer of the resources so plentiful within their respective heartlands. It is an area sparsely populated even today. The Alachua...