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These are perceptive questions that Moore, in his early excavations in northeast Florida, sought to answer. Perhaps the best work Moore did was his earliest: the excavations in shell middens and mounds in the St. Johns River drainage in the early 1890s. As James Stoltman has noted, “Moore was able to revisit all of Wyman’s sites, to record forty-three additional sites, and to excavate on a larger scale than anyone before him. His work was surprisingly meticulous—and he proved to be a careful observer. He amassed further irrefutable evidence in support of Wyman ’s view that the middens were of human origin while, with stratigraphic evidence, he demonstrated that Wyman’s opinion about the relative ages of the shell middens was indeed true” (1973:129; emphasis in original; also see Mitchem 1999:39–41). Moore’s archaeological work on the St. Johns River and, perhaps,his ability to mount ¤eld expeditions were apparently well respected by his Philadelphia peers. In 1895 the University of Pennsylvania Archaeology Department offered Moore the leadership of an expedition to a large south Florida concession they had acquired from the Disston Land Company (W. Pepper to C. B. Moore, letter, April 13, 1895, North America, Florida Explorations 1894– 1903, Box 2, Folder 2, University of Pennsylvania Museum Archives). He turned it down (C. B. Moore to W. Pepper, April 21, 1895, North America, Florida Explorations 1894–1903, Box 2, Folder 2, University of Pennsylvania Museum Archives), however, probably because he was forever disinclined to associate himself with the university. As Moore became increasingly enamored with excavating mounds, and later with cemeteries instead of middens (in the mid-1890s), he became more interested in ¤nding high-quality ceramic vessels and other artifacts. The structure and exact nature of mounds sometimes was secondary to artifact recovery, and the phrase “nothing of value was found” appears far too often in his ¤eld notes and reports in reference to excavated mounds where no ceramic vessels were found. This lessened concern for context is re®ected both in his attitude toward¤eld photography and in his ¤eld notes, which by the end of his career tend to be little more than a listing of artifacts found. The published monographs become heavily illustrated versions of the ¤eld notes. Some of the reports tend to be brief, but being able to match artifacts with sites provides modern archaeologists with important data. And the observations on context that can be teased from Moore’s notes or reports sometimes can be gems for modern scholars. Clarence Bloom¤eld Moore 129 In the ¤eld Moore worked too fast and tried to do too much, especially after he embarked on his mound excavations. This tendency apparently was not just an attempt to ¤nd as many high-quality pottery vessels as he could. In the ¤eld Moore witnessed ¤rsthand the market for antiquities that already had developed in the Southeast by the turn of the century. Repeatedly in the introductions to his reports he makes reference to “treasure-seekers,” “relic sellers,” and “irresponsible” residents who looted sites for pro¤t. He also railed against the artifact counterfeiters who were in®ating a ®ourishing, earlytwentieth -century antiquities market, contributing to the disappearance of archaeological sites. He viewed himself as a bona ¤de scientist, working under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, whose excavations were saving the contents of mounds from those who would despoil the sites and sell their artifacts. The more mounds he could excavate, the more artifacts he could save. But by his own declaration, Moore saw to the “total demolition” of hundreds of mounds; “[w]here these mounds have not been leveled to the base, the fault has not been ours” (Moore 1894a:129). His three excavations at the famous Crystal River site on Florida’s Gulf coast (in 1903, 1906, and 1918) illustrate the rapidity with which they worked. Altogether, Moore spent 34 days at Crystal River with only about 25 days during which digging took place. In that relatively short time more than 40 intact (or nearly so) ceramic vessels and hundreds of other artifacts (including a variety of delicate copper and shell objects) were recovered. They also excavated the skeletal remains of at least 429 individuals. Clearing so many artifacts and burials with a crew of a dozen or even twice that many people in so short a time would be impossible utilizing modern standards of excavation. Moore’s crews must have literally ripped things...

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