New Histories of Pre-Columbian Florida

4. New Insights on the Woodland and Mississippi Periods of West-Peninsular Florida

4 New Insights on the Woodland and Mississippi Periods of West-Peninsular Florida George M. Luer I will discuss four themes that offer new insights in Florida archaeology: 1) monumentality ; 2) exchange, migration, and mobility; 3) human-landscape interactions ; and 4) symbolism and ritualization. I draw mostly from the Manasota (ca. 500 BC to AD 700), late peninsular Weeden Island (ca. AD 700 to 1000), and Safety Harbor (ca. AD 1000 to 1700) cultures of the Tampa Bay to Charlotte Harbor area, citing primarily burial mounds, shell middens, shell artifacts, and ceramics. I also bring together data from throughout west-peninsular Florida, the wider region stretching along the Gulf coast from just north of Crystal River to just south of Naples and extending inland to Lake Okeechobee and the central ridges and lakes (figure 4.1). The typology of the Weeden Island and Safety Harbor cultures was first defined in detail by Willey (1949). Safety Harbor is a Mississippian culture known for large mounds.WeedenIslandisaWoodlandculturefamousfor decorated pottery. Manasota is an early and middle Woodland culture (defined typologically by Luer and Almy 1979, 1982) that is best known for plain sand-tempered pottery and flexed burials. Early Manasota is coeval with the Deptford period of north Florida (ca. 500 BC to AD 300), while late Manasota includes early Weeden Island–influenced times (ca. AD 300 to 700). It is followed by late Weeden Island culture, extending to Charlotte Harbor. During these Woodland and Mississippian times, west-peninsular Florida supported growing populations and increasing sociopolitical organization, leading to the simple and complex chiefdoms the Spanish encountered in the 1500s, such as the Mocozo, Tocobaga, and Calusa (Bullen 1978; Lewis 1978). I include the Caloosahatchee Region as part of west-peninsular Florida, as it shares many similar developments with the Sarasota and Tampa Bay areas, including shell tools, burial rituals, and symbolism. The Woodland and Mississippi Periods of West-Peninsular Florida 75 Monumentality Peoplesofthepastused“thepast”tovalidatetheirbeliefsystemsand reinforcetheir social organization. An example is the commemoration of the dead through building burial mounds. These monuments persisted for generations and often involved large numbers of people in their construction and use. Burial Mounds as Monuments In west-peninsular Florida, Native Americans built large burial mounds in significant locations to serve as monuments where often relatively small numbers of indiFigure 4.1. Selected sites in west peninsular Florida and nearby. Many of these important sites are now destroyed. Map created by George M. Luer and Tesa R. Norman; used by permission of George M. Luer, Sarasota, Florida. George M. Luer 76 viduals were interred. These mounds were sacred places. They served to integrate the general community and to separate the individuals buried in them from other members of society. New research shows that burial monuments were beginning to be built in the region during early Woodland times, earlier than was previously thought. In Sarasota , new radiocarbon research shows that the Yellow Bluffs Mound (figure 4.2) is more than 2,000 years old, dating to the early mid-Manasota period (ca. 200 to 50 BC). This impressive mound was 2.5 meters high and was built on a rare piece of high ground, providing a wide view over Sarasota Bay (Luer 2011; Luer and Hughes 2011). Farther north, radiocarbon dates from the Crystal River site also support the beginningofburialmoundsduringthemid -Deptfordperiod(ca.100BC).Theyinclude Mound G and basal portions of the nearby mortuary precinct (Mounds C, E, F). The central burial tumulus (Mound F) continued to be used into Weeden Island times, Figure 4.2. Sarasota’s 2,000-year-old Yellow Bluffs Mound, now destroyed, at the start of salvage excavations in 1969. Courtesy of Sarasota County History Center, Sarasota, Florida. The Woodland and Mississippi Periods of West-Peninsular Florida 77 growing to an imposing height of 3.3 meters. Equally impressive was the precinct’s encircling embankment (Mound C) (Pluckhahn et al. 2010). Early mound-building also took place at the Fort Center site, near Lake Okeechobee (see Thompson and Pluckhahn this volume). In middle Woodland times, around AD 200, construction was under way at Fort Center’s Mound B. In addition to containing Crystal River–related pottery sherds, Mound B had an encircling embankment resembling the one at Crystal River. The embankment enclosed a mortuary precinct, including a pond with remains of a charnel structure (Sears 1982, 186–88, figure 9.5). Embankments need more attention. Near Tampa, the Jones Mound had a...