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Introduction New Approaches to Ancient Florida Neill J. Wallis and Asa R. Randall Floridainhabitsapeculiarspotinournationalnarrative. Asa vacation destination, it is a place to be celebrated, visited, and recorded in photographs. These experiences are materialized in pieces of the state. Painted seashells, postcards, and other kitsch are redistributed globally as mnemonics of this particular paradise. Largely because of its striking beauty, the state is also upheld as one of the last great vestiges of primordial nature to be enjoyed in the United States. The more ecologically conscious can delight in the environment for its own sake or for sport. The prospect of engaging with either of these Floridas has drawn many outsiders into the region (Mohl and Pozzetta 1996), reinforcing these conceptions. These two Floridas are, not surprisingly, often at odds. The tension between environmental preservation and development for recreation helps drive contemporary political agendas (Colburn 1996; Mohl and Mormino 1996). Despite their differences, these Floridas share a common origin. They have been crafted by environmentalists , land speculators, and inhabitants who have objectified the region as either timeless and pristine or full of potential for future economic success (e.g., Grunwald 2006; Noll and Tegeder 2009; Standiford 2002). There is a third, much more ancient Florida. This is a place that is often forgotten , downplayed, or actively denied in recent grand narratives (Weisman 2003). The archaeology of ancient Florida has revealed vibrant cultures and communities filled with diverse persons who engaged with the world in various and at times competing ways. Human settlement of the region can be traced back to at least 12,000 years ago, and perhaps even earlier. Over successive millennia, inhabitants made histories of their own by modifying the landscape and through social interaction. These processes are materialized in well-preserved Paleoindian sites and wet sites laden with organic matter, represented by early and grandiose traditions of mound building, and evidenced by repeated moments of cultural contact, extralocal connections, and by practicing distinctive traditions. Neill J. Wallis and Asa R. Randall 2 While our understanding of this ancient Florida continues to grow through archaeological field research and laboratory analyses, the richness of Florida’s aboriginal past is too often appreciated by only a small group of practitioners working in the state. Several factors have impeded regional, national, or international consideration of Florida’s significance, each leading to the creation of erroneous notions that continuetoimpedeinterpretationsofthepast.Foremostamong thesefactorsisthat Florida has been maintained as a geographically peripheral appendage to southeastern North America. Sociopolitical developments in the ancient Southeast are regularly conceived as centered in places far from the Florida peninsula, often in various parts of the Mississippi Valley. For instance, Poverty Point in northeast Louisiana looms large as a Late Archaic center of nascent sociopolitical complexity (Kidder 2010; Sassaman 2005). Similarly, the well-known Hopewell Interaction Sphere of the Middle Woodland period is conceived as originating in the Midwest in areas of Ohio and Illinois (Carr and Case 2006; Charles 2006), and the “Big Bang” of Cahokia in southern Illinois set in motion a history of Mississippianization that would reach far into the deep south (Anderson 1994; Pauketat 2007). Although Floridacommunitieswereimplicatedinallofthesebroad-scaleculturaland historical phenomena to some degree, their role has inevitably been interpreted as that of receivers rather than generators of grand traditions and social change. Florida is unquestionably unique in its archaeology and geography, and much of the state is far more proximate to the Caribbean than to the Southeast, as traditionally conceived. ButtheviewthatFloridaislocatedonthegeographicalandculturalperipherytends to neglect the formative role of ancient Floridians in large-scale regional processes. Consider, for example, the remarkable abundance of Florida-made St. Johns pottery at Poverty Point (Hays and Weinstein 2004) or the widespread distribution of Busycon shells thousands of miles across the Midwest in the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippi periods (Carr 2006; Claassen 1996, 2008). Indeed, when one considers the fact that many well-known and widespread phenomena (e.g., Hopewell, Mississippianization) originated on the edges of the Southeast, Florida’s geographic remoteness would seem to be of little consequence in terms of engagement with or influence of regional politics and ritual processes. AnotherfactorthathasdiminishedFlorida’sarchaeologicalsignificancehasbeen the tacit acceptance of our national narrative about the state’s natural beauty and the assumption that Florida’s inhabitants are best understood in purely ecological terms. “Adaptation,” a long-standing legacy of the intersections of Steward’s (1955) cultural ecology, various “New Archaeologies” (Binford 1962), and the environmental movement that burgeoned in the 1960s (e.g., Carson 1962), is a buzzword whose popularity can be traced throughout Americanist...

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