NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Monumentality During the Mid-Holocene in the Upper and Middle St. Johns River Basins, Florida
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Field of Anthropology
By
Virgil Roy Beasley III
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS
December 2008 2
© Copyright by Virgil Roy Beasley III 2008 All Rights Reserved 3
ABSTRACT
Monumentality During the Mid-Holocene in the Upper and Middle St. Johns River Basins, Florida
Virgil Roy Beasley III
This dissertation reviews the contexts and conditions for the appearance of monuments in the upper and middle St. Johns basins of peninsular during the Mt. Taylor period. Beginning with an attempt to determine if mortuary monuments built of shell could be distinguished from shell middens, the archaeology of four preceramic shell sites is analyzed using Harris matrices and summarized. It is argued that particular portions of these sites represent intentional constructions. A hermeneutical approach to the study of sacred architecture is employed to bridge understanding between particular archaeological signatures and behaviors. Finally, the development of monumentality is presented as a process of continuous feedback between ecological conditions, personal decisions, and community devotion. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I cannot express enough gratitude to all the people who have contributed to this journey. First, and most importantly, I thank my wife Marina and my son Marko. Without my family, this would not have happened. Marina has been unwavering in her support. Marko has reminded my many times that if I was finished, we could be outside playing baseball. You have made me a better man my son. To my mother and father, thank you for giving me a home. Mama, if I don’t show my love for you enough, just know how deep it really is. Daddy, you have been a real father. James Allison Brown, thank you. You are the finest mentor a student could have. Jim provided me the intellectual field where seeds could grow. Tim Earle and Bill Leonard served as the other members of my committee, and have always strived to make me a better scholar. Tim taught me so much about economy and complexity, and Bill made me explain myself without unneeded verbiage. Thank you both. To every teacher I’ve ever had, from Ms. Maxine in kindergarten to the faculties of Central Florida Community College, the University of Central Florida, the University of Alabama, and Northwestern, I thank you for your sharing and for your efforts. I learned from you all. I especially appreciate you Ian Brown. Many, many friends have contributed to the ideas in this dissertation. Rob Beck, it has been an honor to be your colleague. Doug, Sorenson, Schwartz, Rana, Andy; it was good to be your classmates. Keith Little, thanks for the coffee and smokes. You have made this a much better dissertation. Tom Lewis, it was fun running down the road with you; glad we didn’t wreck. To all my UA friends, thanks for listening to my ramblings. John Lieb and Myron Estes are true salt of the earth fellers, and have helped me so many times and in so many ways, I could never express the depth of my thanks. Michael Stallings, you said on a river bank in 1991 that you would stand by me to the end, and you have. You are the essence of a friend. I dedicate this to you. 5 Ta b l e o f Co n t e n t s
Chapter 1: Introduction 12 Organization of the Study 16 Future Research 17 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background 20 Conjectural History Perspectives 20 Culture‑Area Perspectives 23 Culture‑History Perspectives 24 Processual Perspectives 26 Contemporary Perspectives 27 Shell Heaps as Monuments 27 Hunter-Gatherer Social Complexity 29 Chapter 3: Theoretical Approach 31 Monumentality and Sacred Architecture 31 A Hermeneutical Approach to Sacred Architecture 32 Temporalities 35 The Making of Nanih Waiya 36 Discussion 41 Chapter 4: A History of Mt. Taylor Archaeology 44 Initial Formulation 44 Formalization 47 Maturation 55 Chapter 5: Mt. Taylor as a Temporal Construct 60 Mt. Taylor Period Specifics 60 Burial Modes 61 Grave Inclusions 62 Burial Strata Matrix 63 Non-local Stone 63 Shell Artifacts 64 6 Background to the Thornhill Lake Period 65 Thornhill Lake Period Specifics 68 Burial Modes 69 Grave Inclusions 70 Burial Strata Matrix 71 Non-local Stone 72 Shell Artifacts 73 Radiocarbon Chronology 74 Methodology 75 Results 76 Discussion and Conclusions 79 Chapter 6: Environment and Subsistence 81 General Characteristics 81 Geology 81 Soils 82 Sea-levels 83 Pollen 86 Temperature 88 Subsistence 89 Discussion 94 Chapter 7: Midden and Monument 96 Persistent and Transitory Surfaces 96 Chapter 8: Site Descriptions 100 Introduction 100 Methodology 101 Harris Creek (8Vo24) 102 Stratigraphy and Mortuary Deposits 106 Palmer-Taylor Mound (8Se18) 112 Setting 112 Previous Research 114 7 Moore’s 1892 Excavations 116 Excavation I 116 Excavation II 117 Excavation III 117 Excavators’ Club Excavations 118 Rollins College 1975 Excavations 120 Rollins College 1976 Excavations 123 Author Visit 130 Construction of the Palmer-Taylor Mound 130 Orange Mound (8Or1) 134 Setting 134 Previous Research 136 Moore’s 1892 Excavations 137 Excavation I 138 Excavation II 141 Excavation III 142 Excavation IV 143 Moore’s 1893 Excavations 144 Other Visits 145 Construction of the Orange Mound 146 Persimmon Mound (8VO4367) 151 Setting 151 Previous Research 152 Moore’s 1892 Excavations 155 Construction of Persimmon Mound 157 Persimmon Mound II 159 Moore’s 1892 Excavations 159 Construction of Persimmon Mound II 159 Shared Stratigraphic Attributes 160 8 Areally Extensive and Continuous Strata 160 Human Bone Entombed by Extensive Shell Strata 162 Grave Pits into Extant Strata 163 Group/Community Burial 166 Associations of Fire and Mortuary Contexts 167 Associations of Food and Mortuary Contexts 168 White Sand 169 Artifact Sparsity 170 Discussion 171 Chapter 9: A Basic Model of Midden Accumulation 173 Thompson=s Evolution of Place Model 175 Midden Matrix 179 Discussion 181 Chapter 10: Ritual-Architectural Reception Histories of the Upper St. Johns Mt. Taylor Burial Monuments 182 Review of the Stratigraphy of the Orange Mound 182 Review of the Stratigraphy of the Persimmon Mound 183 Review of the Stratigraphy of the Persimmon II Mound 184 A Ritual-Architectural History of the Palmer-Taylor Mound 184 A Ritual-Architectural Sequence 188 Harvesting 188 Heirlooming 188 Siting 190 Initiating 191 Inciting 191 Reproducing 192 Discussion 193 Chapter 11: Conclusions 194 Palmer-Taylor as Sacred Architecture 195 Discussion 196 9 Works Cited 201 Appendix A: The Creation of Nunih Waya 219 10 Li s t o f Fi g u r e s
Figure 1: Sites Discussed in Text 13 Figure 2: Ritual-Architectural Reception History of Nunih Waya 42 Figure 3: Bone Pins 63 Figure 5: Busycon Shell Tools 64 Figure 4: Archaic Stemmed Point, Buzzard’s Roost 64 Figure 6: Sketch Map of the Thornhill Lake Site 65 Figure 7: Shell Beads 70 Figure 8: Bannerstones, Thornhill Lake 71 Figure 9: Bluffton Burial Mound Section 72 Figure 10: Stone Beads 73 Figure 11: Strombus Celts 73 Figure 12: Microliths 74 Figure 13: Seriation of Radiocarbon Dates 78 Figure 14: Holocene Sea Levels 84 Figure 15: Windover Aboreal Pollen 87 Figure 16: Windover Non-aboreal Pollen 87 Figure 17: Mean July Temperature Anomaly of the Past 10,000 cal. yr. BP. 89 Figure 18: Sites on Tick Island 103 Figure 19: Harris Creek Sections 106 Figure 20: Area of Palmer-Taylor Mound 112 Figure 21: View East from Palmer-Taylor Mound 113 Figure 22: View from East towards Palmer-Taylor Mound and Suspected Spring 114 Figure 23: Excavations at Palmer-Taylor Mound 115 Figure 24: Moore Excavation I Section 116 Figure 25: Moore Excavation II Section 118 Figure 26: Excavators’ Club Section 119 Figure 27: 1975 Unit 6 West Section 121 Figure 28: 1975 Unit 2 West Section 122 11 Figure 29: 1976 Unit 4 North Section 124 Figure 30: 1976 Unit 9 North Section 125 Figure 32: 1976 Unit 3 West Section 127 Figure 31: 1976 Unit 2 North Section 127 Figure 33: 1976 Unit 5 North Section 128 Figure 34: 1976 Unit 6 North Section 128 Figure 35: Unit 7 West Section 129 Figure 36: Unit 8 North Section 129 Figure 37: Harris Matrix of Palmer-Taylor Mound 131 Figure 38: Area of Orange Mound, Persimmon Mound, and Persimmon II 134 Figure 39: Orange Mound 135 Figure 40: Location of Moore’s Excavations at Orange Mound 138 Figure 41: Moore’s Excavation I 139 Figure 42: Moore’s Excavation II 142 Figure 43: Moore’s Excavation III 143 Figure 44: Moore’s Excavation IV 144 Figure 45: Harris Matrix of Orange Mound 147 Figure 46: Sketch Map, Persimmon Mound and Persimmon II 152 Figure 47: Moore’s Excavation I, Persimmon Mound 156 Figure 48: Harris Matrix, Persimmon Mound 158 Figure 49: Moore’s Excavations, Persimmon Mound II 160 Figure 50: Burial Pit, Palmer-Taylor Mound 165 Figure 51: Time Slice Model of Resistance Profile, Ring III, Sapelo Shell Ring Complex 176 Figure 52: McGee’s Model of Mt. Taylor Site Configuration 177 Figure 53: Shell Crescents 178 Figure 54: Sassaman et al. Model of Mt. Taylor Site Structure 180 Figure 55: Mortuary Strata of Palmer-Taylor Mound 186 Figure 56: Palmer-Taylor Ritual-Architectural Reception History 189 12 Li s t o f Ta b l e s
Table 1: Chronology of the Mid-Holocene in the Upper St. Johns 61 Table 2: Selected Radiocarbon Dates from Mt. Taylor, Thornhill Lake, and Orange Period Contexts 77 Table 3: Comparisons between Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake Periods 79 Table 4: Shared Structural Attributes of Mt. Taylor Mounds 161 13 Ch a p t e r 1: In t r o d u ct i o n
AI would like to add as a proviso here that in matters of religion, as of art, there are no >simpler' peoples, only some peoples with simpler technologies than our own. Man's >imaginative' and >emotional' life is always and everywhere rich and complex. Just how rich and complex the symbolism of tribal ritual can be, it will be part of my task to show@ (Turner 1969: 3). The Mt. Taylor period (7300‑5600 cal 14C yr BP) of the St. Johns river in peninsular Florida has played a central role in the development of shell site archaeological theory and interpretations (Figure 1). These enigmatic large heaps of shell, distinguished by the presence of human remains in some, have proved theoretical Rorschah tests for arguments of primitive and endowed. Interpretations range from basest savagery to first mound builders, from conditions of miserable abjectness to hyper‑abundance. Not unexpectedly, archaeological narratives serve the theoretical agendas of author and era. The region is characterized by extensive marshes, swamps, and slow-moving waterways that began to become entrenched during the mid-Holocene, leading to the development of extensive freshwater fisheries. These fisheries provided an economic base that was both highly productive and highly predictable and encouraged populations to become tethered to smaller and specific territories. Restricted mobility left more obvious physical traces of perpetuity on the landscape in the form of extraction and processing facilities and large scale middens, a process that further strengthened groups’ ties to bounded taskscapes (Ingold 1993). However, people interring their dead in highly visible monuments indicates a striking commitment to the history of a particular place and the expectation of continued access to the honored dead and to local resources. These monuments are the foundational sacred architecture of emergent corporate groups. As a materialization of claims, these monuments demonstrate a willingness to invest not only time, economic goods, and even ancestors into their construction, but also submission to a new type of community and a devotion to defense of those monuments and what they represent. Building a burial monument binds people to places in new and persistent ways. Mt. Taylor burial monuments are materializations of a new social contract with ancestral remains as collateral. 14
MOUNT TAYLOR MOUND
BLUFFTON MIDDEN HARRIS CREEK MOUND
HONTOON DEAD CREEK MOUND LIVE OAK MOUND OLD ENTERPRISE/GROVES’ ORANGE MIDDEN LAKE MONROE OUTLET MIDDEN BUZZARD'S ROOST PERSIMMON II
THORNHILL LAKE MOUND PERSIMMON MOUND
PALMER-TAYLOR MOUND WINDOVER POND RATTLESNAKE HUMMOCK ORANGE MOUND
INDIAN FIELDS
V B NorthR 0 150 KM
Figure 1: Sites Discussed in Text
For nineteenth century evolutionists, the shell heaps1 were clear examples of the stage of savagery and confirmation of developmental forms implicated from colonial observations. Human remains found in the heaps were read as evidence of cannibalism. Enduring themes of behavioral, mental, and material poverty were cast at this time. Early twentieth century
proponents of culture‑area found strong correspondence between the sparse material record and
1 In reference to the upper St. Johns shell-bearing sites, shell heap is used to indicate the composite site, i.e. the total midden, monument, and any other shell constructions present. It is a general category. Midden is used spe- cifically in reference to deposits demonstrably shown to be food refuse. I use midden in the original Scandinavian sense of kjoekkenmoeddings, or kitchen middens, not as a general nominal for shell-bearing sites. Monument, in regards to the upper St. Johns sites, refers to mounded shell with demonstrable mortuary strata. Mound is occa- sionally used as a synonym to monument. 15 diffusionary prediction, since Mt. Taylor sites are found far from nuclear centers of complexity and advancement. Adoption of core‑periphery principles by post‑Depression archaeologists continued to encourage an end‑of‑the‑line geographical position for the St. Johns. Coevally, preceramic shell sites of the southeast were congruent to a return of stage constructions and a greater integration of environment as an explanatory device. In the mid‑twentieth century, the St. Johns and most of the Florida peninsula was central to issues of trans‑oceanic contacts. During the later decades of the twentieth century, processual approaches emphasized local developments and environmental adaptations, and shell heaps were conceived of as ideal datasets, while ethnographic data were newly re‑embraced as a source of analogy. More recently, the attribution of intentionality during the mid‑Holocene has drawn the Mt. Taylor shell heaps into a lively debate regarding the origins and conditions of social complexity and capability. Read as intentional burial mounds, the Mt. Taylor heaps are one of the earliest dated examples of mortuary architecture in North or Central America. However, while all these models have utilized the presence of burials in shell matrices as evidence in their conclusions, particularly as indicative of complexity or the lack thereof, none have addressed the fundamental question: Can we distinguish between a shell midden and a burial monument built with shell? If so, and we can demonstrate that at least some of the Mt. Taylor shell heaps represent intentional constructions, what are the implications for understanding the emergence of monumentality and the potential of fisher-hunter-gatherer economies? Addressing these questions, the archaeological record of five aceramic shell heaps with human remains is intensively reviewed and analyzed. In particular reference to the Mt. Taylor period shell heaps, some of the archaeological criteria used to secern monument‑antimonument are that monuments: have consistent, deliberate stratigraphic structure, present a patterned ritual component, and display siting regularity. Mortuary layers are not surmounted by contemporary middens; when middens are found atop burial remains, they are significantly later in time. There is a grammar of deposition, a pattern repeated at multiple sites and Mt. Taylor burial monuments are part of a total “cultural complex,” found in concert with material consequences of all activities, including middens. 16 Throughout this dissertation, the primary assumption is that human remains interred with care are always considered sacred, worthy of veneration. Contexts that include human remains treated respectfully are expectedly sacred. By this reasoning– that the shell heaps can be shown to be intentionally constructed and that contexts with human remains shown care and attention are sacred– shell deposits that meet these criteria are conceived of as sacred architecture. With this qualification of Mt. Taylor mortuary monuments, a theoretical approach tothe study of sacred architecture forwarded by historian of religion Lindsay Jones (2000a; 2000b) is employed as a protocol of investigation. Beginning with a thesis of superabundance of meaning, the method reframes sacred architecture in a background independent way and provides a language of mapping the archaeological data to the transformative event of monument creation. Jones describes a hermeneutical and experiential approach to sacred architecture, foregrounding human experience as the tempo of investigation, with the writing of ritual‑architectural reception histories as one goal. These are reconstructions of people’s encounters with sacred architecture, informed by the materializations of these encounters. In this dissertation, the method of Jones is employed as a middle-range theory; it provides linkage between specific archaeological contexts and specific behaviors. If it can be demonstrated that Mt. Taylor period burial monuments exist, there is warrant to reconsider the interpretations of mortuary practice/non‑practice in previous models and give an alternative approach. Additionally, if a model of intentional construction is supported, we have opportunity to bring new insights into the capabilities of fisher‑hunter‑gatherers. Tempo and materiality are of central importance throughout this dissertation. Human experience as the tempo of investigation runs contradictory to general archaeological practice. Change over time, as conceptualized by many archaeologists, is not the focus of this study. Instead, tempo is treated as an attribute of material data. To apply Jones= prescription for studying sacred architecture to archaeological data requires recognition that contexts excavated sometimes represent millennium, sometimes moments. Chronology, environment, subsistence: none are called upon for explanation in a hermeneutical model, but all are necessary to bring the tempo of investigation to that of human 17 experience. There is therefore a lengthy recitation of such data as an adducer to temporality and a descriptor of the specific case.
Or g a n i z a t i o n o f t h e St u d y Chapter 2 is a history of theoretical approaches applied to Mt. Taylor archaeological remains. Discussion begins with Jeffries Wyman and extends into recent research. Emphasis is on changing interpretations of human bone found buried in shell deposits. Chapter 3 outlines my usage of Lindsay Jones’ hermeneutical approach to sacred architecture. After summarizing Jones’ program, I introduce two temporal concepts that relate to the experiences
of people apprehending architecture. A Choctaw story of mound creation is outlined, and then used to illustrate my technique of creating a ritual‑architectural reception history of a sacred building. Chapter 4 reviews the history of Mt. Taylor archaeology, culminating with the contemporary model of Mt. Taylor society. There is presented a history of research concerned with preceramic shell heaps of the St. Johns, emphasizing the upper St. Johns and beginning with how the nineteenth century excavations of Wyman and Moore were transformed and interpreted by culture‑historical, salvage, environmental, processual, and more recently, ideational archaeologies. Chapter 5 details an updated chronology of Mt. Taylor period archaeology. A reassessment of Mt. Taylor as an archaeological period, utilizing published excavations and radiocarbon dates, reintroduces a restriction of the period temporally and materially and describes a new archaeological period encompassing the later portion of the preceramic shell heaps. Once so defined, further discussion in this dissertation emphasizes the Mt. Taylor period. Chapter 6 discusses two main arenas: the general environmental context and the basic subsistence strategy of the Mt. Taylor period. Physical characteristics of the region are summarized.
Contemporary reconstructions of the mid‑Holocene conditions and local data are reviewed, concentrating on the 7300‑5600 cal 14C yr BP time frame. The state of understanding of Mt. Taylor subsistence strategies is given summary, accenting the role of fishing and how the data do not support dietary models with a primary focus on shellfish or terrestrial fauna, but instead, 18 the evidence indicates a wide spectrum strategy emphasizing aquatic resources. These data are important for contextualizing the archaeological remains. Chapter 7 is a brief introduction to the following two chapters. Contrasting monuments and middens is done by focusing on a few attributes. In addition, a distinction between surfaces based on the time involved in their deposition is made and elaborated upon. In Chapter 8, the excavation data for four Mt. Taylor burial monuments are presented. I use four main sources for these data: the published works of C. B. Moore, the unpublished field notes of C. B. Moore, the published summary of one project, and the unpublished field notes from two Rollins College field schools. There are four monuments from the upper St. Johns described and discussed; these are compared to the middle St. Johns Harris Creek site, the most completely reported Mt. Taylor burial mound. Harris matrices are used to present the stratigraphic data from the upper St. Johns sites. The majority of excavation data presented have not been previously published. Chapter 9 gives a basic model of midden accumulation at Mt. Taylor sites. This model is based in part on recent work with shell rings. It is argued that the bulk of any individual Mt. Taylor site represents accretionary midden, but at some of these sites, burial monuments are found as a component to the total site. Chapter 10 is application of the Jones’s theoretical program to the archaeology of the Mt. Taylor period shell heaps of the upper St. Johns river basin and a summary of interpretations regarding the development of monumentality during the Mt. Taylor period. Specific discussion emphasizes the Palmer‑Taylor Mound, the site for which we have the greatest amount of excavation data. The primary intent is the creation of a ritual‑architectural reception history of the site and relating of this history to emergent monumentality as a processual phenomenon. Finally a review of this study and how this study serves as a datum for further research is given.
Fu t u r e Re s e a r c h The construction of monumental architecture is one of the watershed events in the development 19 of complex society. Monumentality is indicative of a dramatic shift from the impermanent, egalitarian social constructs associated with a foraging mode of subsistence to sedentary, stratified formations indicative of permanence on the landscape. There is a radical reformation of the social landscape and the development of new social organizations that differ dramatically with those constructed and experienced by highly mobile hunter‑gatherer populations (Bradley 1993). The transformation of people’s relationship with their dead, from a personal, household level retention and interaction to the inclusion of those remains in a promiscuous community facility indicates the development of a radically new type of community, submission to a new social order, and commitment to defense of monument, village, and resources. While monuments have traditionally been associated with agriculturalists, the recognition that some foragers constructed monuments, particularly groups whose economy focused on aquatic resources, provides opportunity to expand the discourse of the conditions and social implications of large‑scale mortuary architecture. However, it has proven beyond the depth of this dissertation to fully engage these ideas. Demonstrating Mt. Taylor monumentality is the first step towards a more robust model of fisher‑hunter‑gatherer complexity and the conditions for monumentality. This dissertation has set out to demonstrate unequivocally that Mt. Taylor shell heaps with burials are monuments by conceptualizing those deposits as sacred architecture and detailing a history of ritual interaction. Concomitantly, a review of the temporal placement, environmental context, and subsistence strategies during the Mt. Taylor period shows that data are immensely informative yet limited in these arenas, and further research is required to understand the role these factors have in emergent monumentality and fisher‑hunter‑gatherer complexity. Material conditions are key for understanding the infinite variety of human experience. Immediate concerns are fleshing out details of locally specific ecological conditions, subsistence strategies, chronology, sedentism, and the siting of villages and monuments. A regionally encompassing program of acquiring core samples from sites and the extensive peats found in the upper St. Johns will provide specific data, including: radiocarbon dates, palynological specimens, floral specimens, and stratigraphic data. Isotopic data from shells may prove a way to demonstrate 20 if shell in mortuary strata is gathered from different locations. Further development of a digital paleoenvironmental model will allow for intensive interrogation of the intersection of culture and environment during the Mt. Taylor period, statistical analysis of the concurrence of resources, middens, and burial monuments, and how these findings relate to other areas locally and globally. A productive emphasis on monuments as components of built landscapes has emerged (Ashmore and Knapp 1999). The interface between people and land is often recoverable archaeologically, even in situations of mobile hunter‑gatherers. Taking advantage of the capabilities of geographical technologies and a traditional archaeological concern with spatial distributions, investigations of monuments as foci of economic and/or ideational (Knapp and Ashmore 1999) landscape studies will allow for comparative approaches and more applicability to broader processual and postprocessual theoretical discussions (Buikstra and Charles 1999; Joyce 2001). This work has demonstrated that often, the primary consideration for monument location is not economic, but instead monuments are situated in reference to and nearby natural features that have supernatural importance. The Mt. Taylor monuments are found in a variety of locations, but appear to be focused on springs, landscape features that may have been perceived as portals to the otherworld (Crumley 1999). In Florida, the use of springs and aquatic features for burial has roots in Late Paleoindian time, extending through the early and middle Holocene (Clausen et al 1979; Beriault et al 1981; Doran 2004). A main facet of future research is siting of burial monuments, including the collection of geophysical data to test a thesis of monument proximity to now-relic springs. Findings of this dissertation have highlighted the importance of critical engagement of the history of any particular idea. The archaeology of shell heaps began in a particularly racist theoretical environment and those first pictures of shell site life perpetuated myths of Victorian superiority. The overt racism is gone, but the narrative that mental and spiritual ideas had not yet evolved remains implicit in contemporary archaeological reconstructions of shell site life. Failure to consider the biases of our models perpetuates error and is contradictory to anthropological principle. Future research will continue a critique of theoretical schools of shell site anthropology and advancement of alternative approaches. 21 Ch a p t e r 2: Th e o r e t i c a l Ba c k g r o u n d
This section reviews the theoretical paradigms that have shaped our understanding of Mt. Taylor period archaeology. People of shell heaps bear many interpretive crosses, not the least of which is the undercurrent that they are living in their own filth and spilth. Partly resultant of essentialist assumptions when encountering shell in archaeological contexts, explanations that begin with denigration and assumptions of poverty are not anthropologically productive. Casting the material conditions of shell heap people as unclean obviates a possibility of sacredness and defending interpretations of simplicity by attacking the straw of personal olfactory preferences is distracting and ethnocentric. Applications of anthropological theory to the finding of human remains in the Mt. Taylor shell heaps is emphasized below. Much of the effort of earlier researchers seeks to explain the seeming incongruity of skeletal material and assumptive discard. Again, the central question of this dissertation is can we distinguish between a midden and a monument. Previous theoretical approaches have tended to presume ubiquity of the former. More recently, archaeologists are considering the possibility of the later (Sassaman 2003, 2005), but without making an explicit distinction, spirituality can be dismissed and only gross materialistic factors considered (Milner 2004; Crothers and Bernbeck 2003).
Co n j e c t u r a l Hi s t o r y Pe r sp e c t i v e s Jeffries Wyman was the first professional archaeologist to systematically excavate St. Johns sites, working in the 1860‑1875 conjectural history environment of Darwin, Huxley, Lubbock, Maine, Morgan, and Tylor (Trigger 1989; 1998). Conjectural history used observations of living and historic groups that were commonly collected unsystematically and with tremendous ethnocentric biases. Non-European societies were ranked by their shared similarities with the Victorian ideal and then collated as representations of prehistoric developmental stages. The standard model of shell midden life had been necessitated by the excavation of Danish kjoekkenmoeddings (Morlot 1861). Archaeologists needed analogs to explain the record, and 22 exploited two primary ethnographic examples: the people of Tierra del Fuego and the Andaman Islands, societies considered the lowest type of mankind in the world. The Fuegians, as called, are described as “remarkably stupid” and “disgusting” (Lubbock 1913). Darwin asserted that “These were the most abject and miserable creatures I anywhere beheld” and “Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe they are fellow‑creatures and inhabitants of the same world. . .” (1839). The basics of this conjectural history model of people living on shell sites, particularly the essence of abjectness, remains today. Both the ethnographic people and the archaeological sites were representative of the Middle Status of Savagery, the next to lowest possible stage of human evolutionary development (Morgan 1877), the point just above absolute zero (Wyman 1876). Central to this paradigm is that evolution is not just material, but also mental. The most basic institution of mankind is subsistence: the earlier a form of subsistence in the scheme, the more primitive the mental and technological development of the humans, archaeologically or ethnologically. Attributes of the hypothetical Lower status include a fruit and nut centered, sedentary existence and almost no technology or material culture, i.e., pure gatherers2. A Lamarckian chain of development whereby humankind observes fire, thinks of possessing fire, and then possesses fire by evolutionary leap, leads to the ability and opportunity to exploit fish, the first animal intensively collected. Fire is one of humanity’s first good ideas, fishing allowed humanity to move from the garden and spread across the globe (Morgan 1877: 21). For late nineteenth century theorists, the Mt. Taylor human remains being found in a shell heap are an expectation of conjectural theory. Human bone must be part of the refuse from cannibalistic feasting, intermixed with other secular discard, since living populations who create shell middens are cannibals. The thesis of cannibalism has never been directly challenged by later researchers. It is being contested in this dissertation. Religion of any sort, even a simple notion of the afterlife, was said by the writers to not exist in these societies. Cannibalism is alleged to have occurred in both ethnographic examples cited,
2 There is a usually a strong Genesis tone to this developmental sequence (e.g., Wyman 1876). 23 but, as directly pointed out by several, human remains or indications of cannibalism are not found in the Danish sites (Morlot 1861: 301). Therefore, Wyman’s encountering human remains in St. Johns shell sites fulfilled the expectations of the conjecture and the mere presence of burials is considered evidence of the practice of cannibalism, (1868a, 1868b, 1868c, 1874, 1875, 1876). However, a review of the examples Wyman provides mainly describes burials with some bones missing, typically because it is an eroding or disturbed context. His evidence given for cannibalism is terribly weak (1875: 60-78). Fortunately, conjectural history provided a narrative:
AOne shudders with horror at the prolonged tortures which preceded death and the feast among these savage people. Every device cruelty could suggest was practised. . . finally his body was divided limb from limb, roasted or thrown into the seething pot, and hands and feet, arms and legs, head and trunk, were all stewed into a horrid mess, and eaten amidst yells, songs, and dances@ (Wyman 1875: 71). C.B. Moore’s excavations a few decades later, which provide a large fraction of the archaeological data we have for Mt. Taylor mortuary contexts, were interpreted by him as confirmation of the earlier theories. In the first archaeological paper published by Moore (1892a), he addresses cannibalism:
AThat the makers of many of the shell heaps of the River were cannibals is everywhere admitted since the researches of Professor Wyman; and the writer, in January 1873. . ., where they recovered burnt and broken human bone, split . . .presumably more readily to extract the marrow@ (Moore 1892a:137, emphasis added). This would have been Moore’s senior year at Harvard (Wardell 1956). Nineteen years later, Moore began his own professional career. The thesis of cannibalism remained a current throughout the seasons of excavation and reporting by Moore at sites discussed in this dissertation. Speaking of the Palmer‑Taylor mound:
“In this shell heap the hypothesis of burials, even of disconnected bones, would seem untenable, as absolutely nothing found in association with them pointed to interments. A portion of the remains of the probably cannibalistic feast can be seen at the Wagner Free Institute, Philadelphia@ (Moore 1893c: 612). Moore’s excavations into the preceramic sites that define the Mt. Taylor did produce burnt and broken human bone, in contexts with other fauna. Cannibalism is a reasonable thesis. But, the 24 only explanation considered was that the remains represented cannibalism. The heaps originated with Aa savage people hardly capable of respect for the dead@ (FN:5:181)3. Fortunately, Moore was a competent observer and very punctual disseminator, allowing for thorough dissection of his assertions. Before the beginning of the twentieth century, preceramic cannibalism had achieved the status of demonstrated. Following Moore, almost no professional excavation of Mt. Taylor sites would occur for nearly 70 years.
Cu l t u r e ‑Ar e a Pe r sp e c t i v e s Reaction to nineteenth century evolutionary schemes took form most fully as culture‑area theorizing of ethnological and archaeological data (Trigger 1998). Again, the question of Mt. Taylor monumentality had direct implications for some of the central interpretations forwarded by scholars and the sites were used in development of culture-area ideas (Wissler 1917, 1926). Most fundamental to the culture‑area approach is the thesis that developments and advancements (traits) originate where found in greatest density. The Law of Diffusion (Wissler 1926: 182‑187) instead of unilinear evolution explained differences in social complexity. The converse is that development is latest on the frontiers; the “Principle of Peripheral Retardation,” an idea that appears rooted in Klemm’s Kulturvolker, culturally creative people, and Naturvolker, culturally passive people. “Rather, we must conceive of a line or an axis along which societies and cultures, ..., can be ranged from the one extreme or pole of greatest folk‑like or tribal backwardness to the opposite pole of greatest sophistication@ (Kroeber 1948: 281). All relations of power and dominance are top‑down, as are all facets of ideation and materialization; nothing originates at the periphery (Wissler 1917, 1926; Kroeber 1919, 1939, 1948). This model is applied to explain, in its entirety, native development and experience in the Americas. "New World culture is thus a kind of pyramid whose base is as broad as the two Americas and whose apex rests over Middle America@ (Wissler
3 The field notebooks of C.B. Moore are referred to throughout by FN#, corresponding to the micro- film roll number originally assigned by Davis (1987) and how they are still indexed at Cornell Univer- sity. 25 1917: 361). As the culture‑core theoretical school matured, ecology and subsistence were given greater explanatory weight (Kroeber 1939). "We have found the answer or given an explanation as to why it is that human traits have geography. The cause is ecological@ (Wissler 1926: 221‑222). Whereas the conjectural historians gave substantial depth of time for the archaeological record, culture‑area proponents greatly compressed the occupation of the Americas. Monumentality, recognized as mound building, was dated in reference to Mesoamerican epigraphic data. Mound building is a trait with prerequisites, two of the most important being pottery and agriculture. Traits accrete into civilizations, not greatly different than the basic model of conjectural history being railed against. Whatever the advancement, it should be found latest and simplest on the fringes. Even with a brief chronology, Mt. Taylor shell heaps are stratigraphically early, materially impoverished, and are found far on the periphery, therefore, the possibility of their intentional or meaningful creation is dismissed by rule. Cannibalism as a practice, one of the dirtiest brushes of the conjectural historians, is taken as fact (Wissler 1917: 250). Radiocarbon dating, not discovered when these ideas were germinating, indicates a relatively early date for the heaps, approximately
7300‑5600 cal 14C yr BP, which would make the Mt. Taylor heaps one of the earlier examples of mortuary monumentality in North or Central America, the exact opposite expected by culture‑core principals. If intention can be shown for the Mt. Taylor shell sites in question, we have legitimate warrant to question basic assumptions of the culture‑area school.
Cu l t u r e ‑Hi s t o r y Pe r sp e c t i v e s Post‑Depression era students of American prehistory embraced culture‑area theorizing, wholeheartedly at first (Ford and Willey 1941: 326; Goggin 1948b: 13‑16), and later, with an integration of evolutionary stage constructions (Willey and Phillips 1958). Throughout, the nuclear model remained as the central explanatory mechanism (Willey 1955). Classification and segregation of time and space were the primary operational goals and diffusion was viewed as the primary mechanism of change. For culture‑historians, complexity fluoresces over time as advancements accrete into complexes: people become more civilized. Two individuals associated 26 with this school, John Goggin and Irving Rouse, most directly impacted Mt. Taylor archaeology, contributing to and participating in broader culture‑history debates, while writing the chronologies that continue to define Florida archaeology. Their concern with Florida was primarily in testing the idea of an Antillean interaction sphere (Rouse 1951), and despite their long‑lasting influence, they were not primarily concerned with the St. Johns. Neither Goggin nor Rouse did much excavation on the St. Johns or Indian River, and the definition of the Mt. Taylor period primarily uses Moore’s data from six decades previous. In reference to mortuary ceremonialism, Rouse (1951) only noted the presence of burials in what he termed camps or villages and restated the cannibalism thesis. Goggin’s reading of Archaic Tradition mortuary practice followed received wisdom:
“Ceremonial life does not appear to have been complex, nor does there yet appear a cult dedicated to the dead. Primary burials were made in middens, but the scattered human bones in these sites suggest that little interest was felt for the remains; perhaps, as Wyman has suggested, there was even cannibalism. No offerings accompany the interments (Goggin 1949: 21).” This is the entire discussion of Mt. Taylor burial or ceremonial practice by Goggin. He and Rouse do point out an element of Mt. Taylor mortuary behavior not emphasized previously, the presence of primary burials. But, burial does not seem to imply care of the dead, only the presence of grave goods would show humanistic concern: “This indifference towards the dead is emphasized by the lack of burial offerings” (Goggin 1952: 66). In the 1950’s, the first professional excavation of a Mt. Taylor site since C. B. Moore took place at the Bluffton midden prior to the destruction of the site by shell mining (Bullen 1955). Important information was gained from this project, but no burial remains were encountered. Soon after, one of the two recognized burial mounds at Bluffton was excavated (Sears 1960). Interpretations of the Bluffton Burial Mound had little impact on the standard model of preceramic mortuary ceremonialism, mainly due to its being a paradox in the model. This mound consisted of a single individual lain atop a heavily burned and calcined shell surface and surmounted by several discrete strata. The excavator had little doubt that the mound was intentionally constructed. However, despite there being no artifacts of any sort dating to later than the preceramic, the restrictions of 27 contemporary models of monumentality forced the excavator to give a ceramic period date to the mound (Sears 1960). What should be one of the clearest examples of preceramic monumentality is instead one of the clearest examples of the faults of cultural‑historical stage constructions.
Pr o c e ss u a l Pe r sp e c t i v e s Not long after the work at Bluffton came the most important excavation of a Mt. Taylor site to date. Again in the face of shell‑mining, salvage excavations at the Harris Creek site in 1961 by Ripley Bullen (Jahn and Bullen 1978) encountered over 180 individuals in a complex shell deposit that would cause consternation for decades (Russo 1994b; Aten 1999). The archaeology of Harris Creek is summarized later in this dissertation, but the difficulties that Bullen had in interpreting the site illustrate warrant for the present project. Initial indications were that the interments were preceramic in date, as no artifacts associated with later periods were encountered during reconnaissance. Once excavation commenced, difficulties of interpretation arose. The intentionality of construction of the mound was obvious to Bullen, but since this contradicted the inherited models, he posited a ceramic period date for the mound, despite not a single sherd being found. Once analyzed, radiocarbon dates indicated a preceramic construction, and the structure was no longer said to be a mound (Jahn and Bullen 1978; Russo 1994b; Aten 1999). Eventually, Bullen came to accept the possibility of Middle Archaic mortuary ceremonialism, but it was the assumptions of the conditions of monumentality that created his problems of interpretation (Aten 1999). For the next several decades, Mt. Taylor mortuary practices received little further attention. Several cases of Middle Archaic subaqueous cemeteries were excavated, providing greater substance to basic models of mortuary practice (Carr 1981; Wharton et al. 1981; Purdy 1991;
Beriault et al. 1981; Sigler‑Eisernberg 1984; Doran 2002a) but these were not Mt. Taylor sites, and the standard model of simple people with simple practices continued to dominate. The puzzle of Harris Creek tended to set Mt. Taylor somewhat apart (Milanich and Fairbanks 1980: 151‑152), but the issue of monumentality received little attention until the 1990’s. Wyman’s thesis of cannibalism 28 did receive a peripheral dismissal (Purdy 1991), but overall, Mt. Taylor archaeology followed the same trajectory as most hunter‑gatherer research, with environment and ecology becoming dominate sources of explanation. Models of Mt. Taylor society were again explained by reference to living groups, who were the essence of simplicity (Milanich and Fairbanks 1984). Subsistence and adaptation became the focus (e.g. Cumbaa 1976; Sigler‑Eisenberg 1985b; Russo 1985), and, with exceptions (e.g., Purdy 1991), mortuary practices commanded little attention. In Florida, the portrayal of shell site people as primitive and simple, concerned almost exclusively with food acquisition, mitigated against a possibility of complex achievements, including monumentality.
Co n t e m po r a r y Pe r sp e c t i v e s A recent summary article by Sassaman (2004) and a volume edited by Gibson and Carr (2004) focusing on the topics of complex hunter-gatherers and Archaic monumentality provide snapshots of contemporary thought on these subjects. The Mt. Taylor period deposits are part of these conversations, though they have previously played only a peripheral or implicating role (Sassaman 2004: 257), in part due to an infrequency of modern excavation. Current work is changing this situation (Sassaman 2002; Randall and Sassaman 2005). The theoretical approach employed in this dissertation and detailed in the next chapter is unconcerned with complexity. Of any particular position within the current debates of Archaic complexity and monumentality in the southeastern United States, the strongest principle is adherence to the caution of Saunders (2004) of not extending models of agriculture organization to hunter-gatherer constructions and the concept of beneficent obligation of Gibson (2004). Brief reviews of complex hunter-gatherers and shell heap monumentality are essential to understanding contemporary positions.
Shell Heaps as Monuments
In the late 1980’s‑early 1990’s, a few researchers began to question the standard paradigm of shell‑bearing site research, in particular the notion that abundant shell in archaeological sites solely represented subsistence debris (Widmer 1988). That shell heaps were not exclusively middens was not a new idea (e.g. Jones 1873; Dall in Thomas 1894), but those themes had little traction, and 29 the shell heaps are called middens ab initio. In the southeastern United States, the most prominent practitioners of this new perspective were Cheryl Claassen working on preceramic Archaic sites in the Tennessee‑Green rivers area (1988, 1991a, 1991b, 1996), and Michael Russo, who worked on preceramic Archaic sites in southwest Florida (1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1996). Both argued that in at least some circumstances, shell heaps represented intentional constructions. This radical departure injected monumentality into the discussion of shell sites. Mt. Taylor period sites were part of this discussion early on (Russo 1994b), but no archaeologist actively interrogated the relevant archaeological record until Aten (1999). While the idea of monumentality among shell site people has now become a current of possibility, demonstrating intentionality in shell heaps has proved more difficult than stating the hypothesis. Russo has most fully stated the conundrum of monumentality as an expectation of complexity. In what he terms the “operative evolutionary paradigm” monuments are not compatible with explanatory models, meaning that the evidence does not support a model of complex society, therefore, mounds are impossible by rule. The onus is demonstrating convincing evidence of intentionality. Structure is traditionally shown by layers of earth (e.g. Saunders et al. 1997), but shell matrices, regardless of content, including burials, require a more convincing methodology and theoretical approach (Russo 1994a, 1996). While preceramic earthen mounds with no burials are commonly accepted as built structures, shell heaps with burials are still disputed as being intentional architecture. The major difficulty is in making explicit distinctions between intentional construction and incidental accumulations. Focusing specifically on the structure of the Mt. Taylor shell heaps, I attempt to show how those deposits with human remains are regularly configured in contrast to arenas of secular activity. A historically and spatially particular approach is presented that includes a thick description of material conditions. If Mt. Taylor heaps are shown as monuments, the material conditions documented provide a context for monumentality, though not the essential conditions. It is expected that monumentality will arise in many situations, including foraging and 30 agriculture economies.
Hunter-Gatherer Social Complexity Complex hunter‑gatherer has emerged as the default shorthand term for intensive foraging economies of many stripes (Phillips 1983; Brown and Vierra 1983; Marquardt 1985; Arnold 1996; Prentiss et al. 2007), though the applicability to Mt. Taylor seems taken as a given, rather than something to be demonstrated (Sassaman 2004). Interpreting Mt. Taylor in a comparative framework that includes complex hunter‑gatherers has not been fully engaged, but the theoretical insights from other regions potentially provide a reservoir of research direction (Sassaman 2004). Consequent to modern datasets and theoretical progress, the archaeology of St. Johns shell middens should be approached as material remains of fishing people in a high productivity environment, in contrast to an outdated model of shellfish eaters exploiting a marginal resource and having a marginal existence. Comparing Mt. Taylor material culture to examples of complex hunter‑gatherers reveals affinities and disconformities. Robert Kelly’s characterization of nonegalitarian hunter‑gatherers, with its strong emphasis on material correlates, provides a datum:
“Ethnographically, nonegalitarian hunter‑gatherer societies are characterized by high population densities, sedentism or substantially restricted residential mobility, occupational specialization, perimeter defense and resource ownership, focal exploitation of a particular resource (commonly fish), large resident group sizes, inherited status, ritual feasting complexes, standardized valuables, prestige goods or currencies, and food storage” (1995: 302‑303). During the Mt. Taylor period there is a strong focus on fish and aquatic resources, and a likely, if not demonstrated, restricted mobility. These features could provide the economic conditions for a nonegalitarian structure. Ritual feasting is found in association with mortuary deposits (Aten 1999; Chapter 8). Population density for the Mt. Taylor is unknown; the sites are large but time spans are long (see Stein et al. 2003) . However, indicators of inherited statuses, standardized valuables or prestige goods are not readily found in Mt. Taylor contexts. Monumentality is not part of the definition (Sassaman 2004). 31 If greater social complexity precedes or is ancillary to monumentality is a separate issue. Does the presence of a monument indicate complexity? As Saunders (2004: 147) points out, this is circular reasoning. This is the converse of the paradigm that predicted complexity as a prerequisite of mound building and led to interpretive dead ends for Goggin, Bullen, and Sears. People if the Mt. Taylor period do not simply react to increased aquatic richness with an increase in the rate of accumulation of shell at exploitative camps, but respond to increased richness in part by greater tethering to local environments, more investment in essential facilities, and eventually, decisions to create new corporate organizations materialized as mortuary architecture. 32 Ch a p t e r 3: Th e o r e t i c a l Ap p r o a c h All generalizations are dangerous, even this one. Alexandre Dumas the Younger
This chapter details the theoretical perspective utilized in the analysis of Mt. Taylor shell heaps in testing the primary thesis that these heaps, in part, represent intentional constructions. I make use of a program of analysis proposed by Lindsay Jones (2000a; 2000b) that emphasizes the existence of the hermeneutical experience all persons undergo when apprehending sacred architecture. I also present two temporal concepts that relate to the time frames of these hermeneutical experiences. Finally, I utilize a Choctaw story of the creation of a burial mound to illustrate the creation of a ritual‑architectural reception history as applied to Native American monument construction.
Mo numentality a n d Sa c r e d Architecture Sacred architecture and monuments are related but not equivalent concepts. Not all monuments are sacred architecture, and not all sacred architecture would be considered a monument. Both are defined in reference to the social actors who create and interact with the subject. In this dissertation, the same criteria are being applied as qualification of the Mt. Taylor shell heaps as monument and sacred architecture: the presence of burials and evidence of intentional construction; they are both. The primary contrast between monument and sacred architecture is the temporal relation between social actors and the subject construction. Monument, by implication, refers to a past, a memorial or commemoration . A monument is encountered and interacted with, but is considered extant, a static structure and a message to be broadcast (OED). This is the sense of monumentality most used in archaeology. Sacred architecture is comparatively active, entered into and reflected upon, itself a participant in a sacred performance (Jones 2000a). Sacred architecture is not a messenger, but a place where messages are transmitted and received. The theoretical approach used here is accenting the shell heaps as sacred architecture. In employing a hermeneutical and experiential model, the focus is shifted “from the built form per se to the circumstances that arise in relation to that form, the notion of an architectural event (Jones 2000a: 50)”. Central to this theoretical perspective is the action of building the monument and 33 interacting with the monument, not the monument itself. Sacred architecture can be central to daily life, particularly when the architecture is located in close proximity to homes and activity areas. Mt. Taylor burial monuments are not set apart from the community, but are located within the village and encountered everyday.
A Hermeneutical App r o a c h t o Sa c r e d Architecture Lindsay Jones, a historian of religion who focuses on post‑Classic Yucatec Maya architecture, presents a conceptualization of sacred architecture that encourages application to the archaeology of the Mt. Taylor burial monuments in the upper St. Johns (2000a; 2000b). Jones terms his procedure hermeneutical, as it starts with the premise that architecture is always interpretive and reflective. All sacred architecture, at all times and all places, shares certain properties, the most important of which is that all sacred architecture is superabundant in meaning. Interpretive reflection always occurs, regardless if the sacred architecture is Notre Dame cathedral oran Amazonian hut (Sullivan 2000: xiv). It is this shared property of superabundant meaning that allows for comparison of all sacred architecture, regardless of time or place. In this experiential perspective, there is no hierarchy of sacred architecture; all examples have the same potential of meaning. We cannot know the meaning of sacred architecture, but we do know it is meaningful. Rather than revealing an essential interpretation, a certitude, “. . . understanding must be conceived as a movement of history, a process or sequence of occasions in which neither the interpreter nor the work of art can be thought of as autonomous parts” (Jones 2000a: 41, emphasis in original). This includes the indigenous and the academic. Jones is proposing to problematize architectural interpretation in terms of events or occasions (2000a: 41). To instigate this program, it is required that we move away from the study of sacred architecture as buildings, purely physical phenomena, and instead focus on the human experience of architecture (2000a: 29). Jones asserts that this procedure can be empirical, and suggests a comparative projet that emphasizes the creation, as a researcher, of “ritual‑architectural reception histories” documenting over time the series of uses and interactions, the “monumental occasions” 34 that occur with sacred architecture, focusing not on the built form, but on the built form’s participation in these eventful occasions (2000b: xiii) in pursuit of: “. . . the ascertainment of the actual cosmological and ritual priorities of specific historical contexts” (2000a: 194). The aim is not to classify material culture, but to explore the behaviors and events occurring as a component of hermeneutical reflection and participation, to construct a history of actual experience from material remains. Persons experience, interact with, and interpret sacred architecture, during what Jones terms ritual‑architectural events. These are the monumental occasions referred to above, the intersections between people, buildings, and activity, when indigenous appreciations are formed. Greatly simplifying the details, ritual‑architectural events can be conceived as having a twofold pattern of enticement and engagement. Architecture can form part of the invitation to participate in its creation and history; labor and material resources may be invested heavily in sacred places, yet given without demand. While alluring, sacred architecture is also obviously a potential component of coercion. Once engaged in the hermeneutic experience, people are transformed in their apprehension, changed by experience. Each reception is unique and productive, while still contextualized in past and present. Ritual‑architectural events can have multi‑scalar material consequent. A single devout pilgrim burning incense at a shrine may leave little material while five centuries of pilgrims burning incense at the shrine may accumulate substantial deposits. Some of these happenings include large‑scale investment and material consequent in architecture: they are more materially impressive. Other happenings may leave less of a material signature, but are no less meaningful. Inferring “sacredness” of archaeologically recorded architecture is a preliminary effort towards extrapolation of a class of happenings, but there may be substantive reasons for such a premise. The presence of human remains, particularly as burials and in other contexts of care and celebration, should be reasonably indicative of hallowed architecture. If a sacred nature can be attributed to an architectural feature and we accept that all sacred architecture is superabundant in meaning, occasioned by eventful hermeneutical reflection, then it is reasonable to expect that we 35 can recognize material evidence of ritual‑architectural events (see Johanson 2004). Determining serial order to ritual‑architectural events is part of the strength of archaeological investigation – there is potential for creating ritual‑architectural reception histories. Jones views classification through the lens of Foucault. Classification is not a product of any inherent nature or property of the thing being classified, but instead, is a byproduct of the classifiers own foreknowledge, presumptions, and biases (2000a: 151). He is not proposing however a casting off of classification – comparison is inescapable and potentially academically productive. Instead, he urges a “highly self‑conscious” form of comparison (2000a: 152), i.e., we must be aware that we as scholars are engaging in a hermeneutical exercise, but accept that we still find utility in examination of wider patterns and tendencies. For Jones, it is indigenous apprehensions of sacred architecture during ritual‑architectural events we should compare. Pursuing the event, Jones has developed a historical‑particular methodology as ritual‑architectural historiography that problematizes and rigorously contextualizes “specific occasions of meaningful action wherein specific people and specific buildings are brought into hermeneutical dialogue” (2000a: 191, emphasis in original, 2000b). This is Gertzian thick description, with the explicit intent of cross‑culturally comparing those specific occasions, but not necessarily forwarding generalizations. Jones also proposes that we deal with time differently than in traditional analyses. He views time as one of several means of organizing the diversity of hallowed architecture, but from my perspective of archaeology, it is important that we explore this dimension of understanding. Time is part of our currency. The nature of interaction of person and sacred architecture, i.e., the hermeneutic of the ritual‑architectural event, is by definition situated in the present of the individual, basically synchronic, though contextual and always comparative (2000a: 171‑173). Ritual‑architectural reception histories are by implication diachronic; monuments are constantly revalorized and some have a tenacity of relevance. Experiences are not directly retrievable: that is implied by superabundance. Retrievable are the temporal, serial, and material aspects of experiences, the context of experience. I am attempting below to mediate understanding of ritual‑architectural events at scales of experience. 36 Temporalities In application of Jones’ framework to the archaeology of upper St. Johns burial monuments, i.e., melding experience and vector, it is heuristically useful to cast time into two contrastive forms: transitory and persistent temporalities. Pacing the level of investigation at the tempo of human experience demands we find a means to recognize something representative of this timing. Considering that time, along with space and material culture, is one of the three primary sources of archaeological inference, it is requisite that we treat time as a form of data instead of restricting time to a means of organizing other data. Concurrently, if the aim of analysis is to reconstruct the history of actual and specific interactions of people with sacred architecture, it is necessary that we consider time as it relates to experience (cf. Sassaman 2005). In this dissertation, temporalities are defined as referential, relative time frames of limited duration. Transitory temporalities are defined as maximally not extending beyond the lifetime of one individual. This is analogous to Bailey’s sensational time (1983). Persistent temporalities are defined as minimally extending beyond the lifetime of any one individual. This is analogous to Bailey’s representational time (1983). Temporalities of experience are therefore referential, relative time frames of personal and social experience. Transitory experiences are “the conscious events that make up an individual life” (Merriam‑Webster 1999: experience 3a). Transitory experiences can co‑occur as a group during an event (eyewitness), but can never be shared. Only a relation of the experience can be given or taken (if given directly by an eyewitness, the receiver is an indirect witness). Material culture is formed by transitory experiences (Gamble 1999). Transitory temporalities of experience are the relative time frames of transitory experiences. A transitory temporality of experience must be within the lifetime of an individual. “I am a survivor of World War I” is an example of a transitory experience of co‑occurrence. Focusing on transitory experience, a maximal temporal span of communal events would terminate with the passing of the last participant in a specific event. The event may be brief, but experience lasts a lifetime. Persistent experiences must be shared. Persistent experiences are information received and 37 broadcast transgenerationally by a cohort of identity, the “events that make up the conscious past of a community or nation or mankind generally” (Merriam‑Webster 1999: experience 3b). Material culture is in part informed by and translated through persistent experiences. Persistent temporalities of experience are the relative time frames of persistent experiences. The time referred to is generally “unspecific” in that it is not necessarily related to particular calendrical dates or even to actual historic events. “Our nation fought gallantly during World War I” is an example of a persistent experience – it is a matter of identity. Once an experience passes out of living memory, it can only be persistent.
The Making of Nanih Waiya
To illustrate these two types of temporalities of experience and their relation to ritual‑architectural events, I will describe and discuss a historical text that was collected from a Mississippi Choctaw informant by Gideon Lincecum in the late 19th century (Swanton 1931: 11‑27). This text, which exists as a fragment, relates a journey by the antecedents of the Mississippi Choctaw from “the west” to their historic home range near Philadelphia, Mississippi and the establishment of a permanent community. Along the journey, the people carried bones of their ancestors. After settlement near Nanih Waiya in modern Winston County (spelled Nunih Waya in the relation and herein), a burial mound was established to hold the bones of their ancestors and themselves. The text also describes the practice of the Green Corn ceremony, the establishment of another mound, and battles with the Chickasaw. The first 52 paragraphs (76 total) of this text are given in Appendix A. Synopses of relevant passages are given in this section, with references to the paragraph numbers. This ethnohistoric document is being used for illustration, not analogy. This relation begins somewhat abruptly, with the journey from the west already underway. Travel was halted to give time for the people who are carrying the bones of their ancestors to catch up. The load of bones is great; some families are said to be able to carry nothing else. Individual skeletons outnumber the living. People are devoted to their ancestors though and their own death is preferable to abandonment of the bones (1). The minko, or “chief”, the terms are used interchangeably in the text, looks upon the burden of bones as an evil and begins to ponder a 38 means of getting rid of the burden (2). Following the indications of the sacred pole, which is placed into the ground each night and each morning points the way forward, the people continued on to the southeast, until reaching a point of good lands, water, and foods. The pole had at sunrise after arrival punched itself deeper into the ground and remained erect. The chief orders a stop for winter and the arrangement of camp (3‑5). Several days are required for all the people to make it to the camp, due to the duty of packing the bones. Complaints are rumbling among the people due to despair of continuing on the journey with such loads (6). Before winter, preparations are made for corn plots and seed corn gathered. Life is good at this place. A hill with a hole in the side above one of the camps is given the name Nunih Waya, leaning hill. The encampment is given this name from this time forward (8‑9). Land around is explored and found to be fruitful, the land of vison. The first winter passes and the seed corn returns the first yield (8‑10). “All were filled with gladness” (10). The first Green Corn dance is held at Nunih Waya, after 42 years in the wilderness. The corn is not sufficient to eat, but a pole is erected and a single ear of corn suspended from this pole. People are concerned that the sacred pole will indicate that they should move on, and are fearful, due to the large burden of ancestral bones they would have to transport if a move is mandated. At the same time, they cannot imagine leaving the bones behind (11‑12). The chief is pondering what to do about the burden of the bones. He is aware that the bones are considered sacred relics, and any action must be taken cautiously. The chief is apparently unconcerned with devotion, but only with the bones as a hindrance. “Yet, the oppressive, progress‑checking nature of the burdens was such that they must be disposed of in some way” (13). A council is called by the chief with the leaders of the iksas, appealing for a means to deal with the transportation and adjudication of the bones (14). A short period of time is given for consideration of the issue (15). The council is reluctant to deal with the issue of the bones. People have packed the bones for a long time and over great distances, but for some, there is little connection to the bones 39 themselves. A prohibition against speaking the names of the dead had resulted in a situation where the descendants had no memory of the ancestors. Leaders of the iksas (clans) were fearful of disrespecting the ancestors or bandying about such topics in council. Spirits of the dead are thought to be present, hovering about to insure that they were cared for and not disrespected (16). One Isht ahullo had taught secretly that the bones were sacred relics, not to be labeled as burden or incumbrance. Holding an exclusive council, this man pleads against casting away of the bones, as he suspects the chief wishes to do. The ancestors have charged the people to take care of their bones and carry them whenever they move. If the people were to cast away the relics, then vengeance would come from the spirits, and hunters would fail, disease and hunger, confusion and death would come through the community, until wild dogs feasted on the carcasses of the dead (18). The chief is angry about this secret council, described as being made by bad men with “dark and mischievous influence on the minds of the people” (19) who are sowing discontent. The minko calls forth a meeting of all the people with exception of the “leaders of the clans and conjurers of all grades” (21). Once the people are assembled, he gives a speech against those who encourage carrying the bones. His appeal is to secular concerns and is explicitly not spiritual (23‑25). “I speak not to please or benefit the dead; there is nought I can do or say, that can by any possibility reach their conditions. I speak to the living for the advancement and well being of this great, vigorous, live multitude” (25). The pole appears to have settled permanently, and the journey through the wilderness over (26). But once given this message, according to the chief, the leaders of the iksas and the conjurers spoke of the dangers of disobeying the demands of the ancestors, while also laying claim to exclusivity of communication with the spirits. The chief tells of his dismissing the lot, and has deliberately excluded them from this democratic council. His appeal is to the nation (27). The journey is over in his judgement. The land is good, prophecies have been fulfilled (28). A call is made to become settled (29). In order to take advantage of their improved and providential situation, the chief suggests that 40 a suitable location be chosen, and the bags of ancestral bones piled together and covered with cypress bark. After the pile is created, as appeasement and respect for their dead kin, they should be covered with a mound of soil. The argument is made by the chief that the bones are all from the same kindred, or iksa, and will be pleased to be buried together (29). In the future, after he dies, the chief wants his bones interred in the monument. After his proposals are presented to the people, the chief asks for comment and intercourse (30‑31). An elderly gentlemen who would have been seventeen at the beginning of the migration tells the story of carrying the bones of his father since his boyhood. He loved and respected the bones as sacred, ready to give his life to protect them. But, as his own life is coming to its end, he is reflecting on what will become of his father’s bones in future generations. He has thought of a resting place for his father, but like all the people, was embarrassed by his desires. The proposal of the chief seems a reasonable solution (32). The elder counsels the people to follow the suggestion of the chief rather than leave their ancestors to be tumbled in “greasy packs” and bones lost accidently (33).
The people are convinced (34‑35). A group of men is chosen to find a place for the monument and direct its building. Finding a suitable spot, on sandy land, an oblong square is laid out and soil dug for the first stage of mound building. The soil comes from a spot to the north some ways off. The soil is piled to as high as a man’s head, and then tamped and leveled. A floor is made of cypress bark, and then the sacks with the bones in them are piled up. People are glad to bring their ancestors, and an enormous heap of bones is created. Cypress bark is used to cover the bones, and then covered with soil until there was a “mound half as high as the tallest forest tree” (36). After the population covered the piled human bones with soil, the minko kindles a fire and calls the people together again. He praises their work and the respect demonstrated towards the ancestors. A halt was called to the work for exploitation of the autumnal mast harvests and preparation of fields. After the next Green Corn dance, work should resume on the mound, year after year, until the top was as high as the tallest tree in the forest, with a level platform on top sixty‑by‑thirty steps large, tamped, and planted with nut‑bearing trees (37). 41 Autumn is abundant, and a fall feast is held. After preparation of planting grounds, an elderly gentleman suggests that people return to working on the mound, and not wait for the Green Corn ceremony. After this, people would in honor carry soil to the mound when they had free time (39). The spring brought good conditions, and after planting, people again contributed to the volume of the mound (40). After seven years, everything looked good. Explorations revealed good land and no enemy. Harvests were abundant, and work continued each year on the mound. After the eighth Green Corn ceremony, the committee of men who had guided the building of the mound decreed that the dimensions sought had been reached, and the time had come to plant the trees (41). The minko calls for the man who had carried the emblem of the golden sun during the journey to bring it to the top of the mound and plant it center (42). The people beheld the sun emblem and the monumental work they had accomplished, and were glad. Songs and feasting celebrated their accomplishment, the magnitude of the monument, and the honor given to their ancestors. The time has come to settle, and it is to be at Nunih Waya (43‑44). After feasting for five days, each iksa bought peeled pine poles and ornamented them. For a lunar month, they performed a solemn cry three times a day. After the moon, they gathered for a feast and dance for two days. Mourning, and the monument, were considered completed (45‑46). From then on, after death and cleaning of bones, people “were deposited into a great cavity which had been constructed for that purpose” (47) and the mound became the vault for the nation’s dead. In special circumstances, there were proscribed appropriate actions. If a hunter died too far away to be brought back home, the body and personal effects of the dead were left in place and a conical mound placed over them. Other situations are also addressed (47). The text diverges into a discussion of conical mounds and the recorder’s (Lincecum) excavations of mounds along the Tombigbee (spelled archaically) and his findings there. He claims that the archaeological situation matches the tale teller’s description (48‑49). Following the completion of the mound, the people felt they were permanently settled at Nunih Waya. A speech by the minko summed up the accomplishments of the nation: 42 “We are a brave and exceedingly prosperous people. We are an industrious people. We till the ground in large fields, thereby producing sustenance for this great nation. We are a faithful and dutiful people. We packed the bones of our ancestors on our backs, in the wilderness, forty‑three winters, and at the end of our long journey piled up in their memory a monument that overshadows the land like a great mountain. . . We have traveled over a pathless wilderness, beset with rocks, high mountains, sun‑scorched plains, with dried up rivers of bitter waters; timbered land, full of lakes and ferocious wild beasts. Bravely we have battled and triumphed over all. We have not failed, but are safely located in the rich and fruitful land of tall trees and running brooks seen in a vision of the night, and described by our good chief who is missing. . . Assuredly we are a wonderful people. A people of great power. A united, friendly people. We are irresistibly strong” (52). The remainder of the relation discusses the erection of another mound for the sacred pole and conflicts between the Choctaw and Chickasaw. The story ends as abruptly as it began.
Discussion We can chart this story as it relates to transitory and persistent temporalities, ritual‑architectural events, practice, and depositional correlates by focusing on the transformation of ancestors to burial mound (Figure 2). The story itself is a persistent experience and is referenced to a persistent temporality of experience, i.e., the reference is to the society’s received past. Within the story are references to persistent experiences and temporalities (received ancestors, received burial monument), as well as transitory experiences and temporalities (journey, debate, monument creation, triumph of permanence). The central theme of the story is transformative B a wandering life bearing the bones of their ancestors to a sedentary life with an actively engaged burial monument and claims of territoriality. This transformative event also serves to connect the time before the monument, the time of the making of the monument, and the time since the monument. Following the theme of Jones’ framework, we can focus on particular aspects of the story to form a ritual‑architectural reception history (Figure 2). In this chart, a persistent temporality of experience encompasses an unspecified span from ancestral time to “present”. The four described ritual‑architectural events are termed: Heirlooming, Initiating, Inciting, and Reproducing. The creation of Nunih Waya is encompassed mostly by a transitory temporality, but transitory experiences are contexualized by and contextualize persistent experiences, hence a dashed boundary line 43
Time Persistent Temporality of Experience Burial Ancestors Monument Transitory Temporality of Experience
Nunih Waya Ritual-Architectural Reception History
Ritual-Architectural Event- Heirlooming Initiating Inciting Reproducing Carrying of Surface Preparation Building Continued Bone Sacks, Stacking of Bones, of 1st Mound Burial, Mound Practice- Transporting Covering with Cedar Stratum Constructions During Migration Loose Human Promiscuous Mound Stratum Burials Into Depositional Correlates- Bone, Random Secondary Over Secondary Mound Stratum, Bones in Secular Burials Burials Additional Strata Contexts Figure 2: Ritual-Architectural Reception History of Nunih Waya divides the first and last described ritual‑architectural events, sort of a liminal temporality. Heirlooming, referring to the direct care of ancestral remains, while not being “architecture” itself, is still here nominated as a component of this example of sacred architecture since these remains and their adjudication are the “priority” of the monument in Jones’ sense (2000b). The ancestral remains are the material inheritance of a persistent temporality of experience, being acted on and experienced by contemporary individuals. Heirlooming is part of the allurement of the Nunih Waya monument. Practice is transporting ancestral remains in bags wherever they move. Possible depositional correlates include random human bone in secular contexts. Initiating, facilitating the beginning of, refers to the architectural event of creating a heap of the ancestral bones. Properly, this includes the preparation of the site and collection of cedar. The idea of a communal burial mound was rhetoric until this moment, but again, the material priority is the received ancestral bones. Promiscuous burials, meaning composed of many individuals, would mark this event. Inciting, moving to action, is the communal building of the monument, the piling of the soil over the bones, not only as deemed by the chief, but as a duty and sign of respect. People continue the piling of soil for a total of eight years, after which the mound is considered “finished” as finalizing 44 the transformation of ancestors to architecture. The bone mound is covered with a large stratum of earth. Depositional correlates would be a layer of soil encapsulating promiscuous burials; the monument is built over the ancestors. The horizontal inclusion of community members may be greater than those who deposited ancestral bones in the heap. Reproducing, to produce again, is the continued use of the monument for the inclusion of human remains from the community. The idea is contained in the chief’s wish to have his bones interred and in the architecture becoming a sepulchral vault for the nation. Reproduction is not replication, but continued, unique, ritual‑architectural occasions. Human bones are being placed into the monument. Burials originating from the surface are not intrusive, but a depositional correlate of this event. Exploring this story of Choctaw genesis, it is clear that ritual‑architectural events of the sort Jones refers to are describable. It is also apparent that these events can have material consequent. Additionally, it is possible that time frames of these hermeneutical reflections are describable. Given the potential of this framework to the archaeological record, we can now assess the upper St. Johns shell heaps as records of experience. 45 Ch a p t e r 4: A Hi s t o r y o f Mt. Ta y l o r Ar c h a e o l o g y
Initial Fo r m u l a t i o n The first published notices of the large shell deposits along the St. Johns river come with the work of John Bartram. Appointed by King George III as Royal Botanist in the North American colonies, John Bartram explored much of the southeastern seaboard, including a sojourn up the St. Johns in the company of his more famous son William just prior to the American Revolution (J. Bartram 1942). The expedition of John Bartram is relevant for this dissertation as he navigated to the Upper St. Johns Basin, a feat that was rarely accomplished by whites for the next century. He described the landscape, including soils, waterways, general characteristics of topography, and his immediate surroundings, in addition to the botanical specimens he was sent to observe and collect.
He recognized the shell‑bearing sites as originating with native people, and refers to Indian sites consistently when encountered. He describes shell bluffs, fields, and mounds, all as forms of Indian sites. Contemporary (Seminole) people are not usually mentioned, though it is certain that many local natives were encountered and assisted in the expedition. Of special note, John Bartram sometimes recorded the thickness of archaeological, geological, and soil strata. William Bartram primary interest was in the natural world he encountered, not archaeology. He did no excavation, and beyond florid descriptions of above ground features and the mention of artifacts on the surface, he gives no attention to material remains. Nevertheless, his are useful accounts for general site locations and configurations. But for the purposes of this dissertation, the utility of William Bartram’s account is limited, as he did not go further south than Astor, in the Middle St. Johns, but instead turned west towards the Creek Nations, never returning to the upper St. Johns. Daniel Brinton of the University of Pennsylvania traveled much of the lower and middle St. Johns during the 1850’s, but only brushed the upper St. Johns. His published work includes some exploratory excavations of shell sites. Brinton however did not initially recognize the riverine shell heaps as being culturally constructed, a bias that seriously effects his interpretations. He 46 later did come to accept a cultural creation of the St. Johns shell mounds, but only with minimal comment (Brinton 1859; 1872). As first director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, Jeffries Wyman selected the St. Johns basin for his initial collecting foray. Making several journeys to the region, Wyman explored a large portion of the Lower, Middle, and Upper St. Johns, conducting research in 1860, 1867, and intermittently between 1871 and 1874 (1868a, 1868b, 1868c, 1874, 1875: 18, 1876 ). Wyman was a mostly thorough and conscientious scientist, observer, and recorder. Often Wyman is given great credit for early application of hypothesis testing in archaeology, as regards a natural or cultural origin of the shell heaps by undertaking a program of survey and limited excavation (Willey and Sabloff 1993). Wyman=s work resulted in several important findings. He noted that there were preceramic strata at several of the sites encountered. Wyman also noted the transition from fiber‑tempered to sponge‑spicule tempered pottery, and gave accounting of the animal remains found in the shell heaps. Most notably, Wyman described all the shell heaps as middens, without exception. He also developed, based on analogy with historically observed groups, the thesis that St. Johns people were cannibalistic. Moore is often given most credit for developing the lasting ideas about the behavior of St. Johns people, but most every one of his interpretations can be traced back to Wyman. The largest source of data for this dissertation is the work of Clarence Bloomfield Moore. Moore made several forays into the St. Johns basin, excavating dozens of sites, and faithfully reporting his results. Having become intimate with his notebooks, it is admitted that at times, Moore's methods make one twinge, and claims that all of these sites would have been destroyed are too universal. Regardless, it is unarguable that because of him that we have any archaeological information for a large number of sites. Moore excavated more sites in the St. Johns than anyone before or since, and is the only archaeologist to excavate extensively in the upper St. Johns (1892b; 1892c; 1892d; 1893a; 1893b; 1893c; 1893d) . It is his work that provides the sole source of data for most of the sites in the 47 region, and is the southernmost extension for major archaeological excavations of Mt. Taylor shell heaps in the St. Johns basin still today. The large amount of work done by Moore has a large and at times perhaps undue influence on all later interpretations. He has been taken as the final word on many subjects without question. Detailing of Moore's excavation at the four upper St. Johns sites discussed in this dissertation is found in Chapter 8. His field notes are used extensively in this dissertation, and no review of the area is complete if stopping with the published record. Briefly, he made much more explicit the existence and detail of the preceramic strata within the shell heaps, and provided the particulars of relative chronology, soil matrices, artifacts and mortuary remains missing from Wyman's publications. Moore is also clear in distinguishing shell middens from other types of deposits he recognized, mainly sand burial mounds. Importantly, he never equates the presence of human remains in strata that are dominantly shell with intentional burial, meaning human remains in preceramic deposits are not considered intentional. He argues directly against it. However, there are several cases where it is clear that mounds with no pottery represent intentional mortuary constructions. That preceramic burials are intentional is the central question of this dissertation. Moore managed to explain away obvious contexts, such as Persimmon Mound, as anomalies and not being certain proof of any contemporaneity of shell heaps and burial mounds (1894c: 209‑211). William Henry Holmes (1903:120‑121) comments on the absence of pottery in the early layer of St. Johns shell heaps, accepting that this is time before the invention/usage of pottery in the area. In the early 20th‑century, Nels Nelson described a preceramic horizon at the Oak Hill shell mound on the west bank of the Indian River lagoon (1918). In this article, Nelson explicitly seeks to use the stratigraphy of the site to demonstrate chronology, and provides a general preceramic, plain‑ware, check‑stamped ware sequence. Nelson reports a separate nearby shell mound that contained burials and an adjacent spring (1918: 81). This was one of the few professional archaeological endeavors for nearly forty years, with only minimal attention paid to peninsular Florida until depression‑era relief excavations in the 1930's. Matthew Stirling, who directed several of the relief projects, published the first attempt of synthesis for Florida, a brief essay that divided the state into four 48 archaeological regions (1936). John Goggin marks the work of Stirling as the beginning of the modern period of Florida archaeology (1949). Several thrusts of Stirling's article deserve discussion, as they provide some of the main planks for the structure of Florida archaeology. The notion that Florida served as a "huge cul de sac, which has received and blended a variety of impulses from the north" (351) encouraged the perception that all local prehistoric cultural accomplishments were adventitious, with little or no original contribution to developments elsewhere. The presumption that only a brief period of time was represented by the archaeological record was then current throughout Americanist archaeology (O'Brien and Lyman 2001), and Stirling felt that mound building across eastern North America represented a brief "golden age" with most archaeological remains being assignable to historic tribes (1936; 351). An implication of this brevity is that if preceramic populations were present, the population must have been small and still relatively recent (352). The creation of archaeological regions or areas, largely derived from Boas‑Wissler‑Kroeber principles of organizing cultures and geographies (Kroeber 1939) cast the die for Florida archaeological approaches.
Fo r m a l i z a t i o n Goggin took Stirling’s scheme further, creating more formal definitions of the archaeological areas and periods in Florida, including the first organized statement for preceramic time frames in the St. Johns. Within five frantic publishing years, the basic temporal framework for the Native American occupation in all of Florida was sketched out, with almost all the data coming from limited survey and fieldwork, C. B. Moore’s explorations and the nine Federal Emergency Relief Administration excavations of the 1930’s (Goggin 1947; 1948a; 1948b; 1949; 1952; Goggin and Sommer 1949; Rouse 1951; Willey 1948; 1949a; 1949b). Still today, Goggin’s 1952 designations for the middle and lower St. Johns basins remain the core of the accepted temporal scheme (Milanich 1994). In the initial formulation (Goggin 1947), Florida was divided into eight archaeological areas or regions. The Upper St. Johns, the area of concern in this dissertation, includes portions of 49 two of these regions: the Northern St. Johns Region, stretching from the northern state boundary and including the St. Johns river basin and adjacent coast to just south of Cape Canaveral. The southern extremity of this region would include all the shell heap sites described originally in this
dissertation. The remainder of the Upper St. Johns, basically all that below Lake Cane1 would fall within Goggin’s Melbourne Region. The Melbourne Region included the St. Johns drainage and all lands to the coast from Cape Canaveral to the Glades Area in his scheme, i.e., to the true headwaters of the St. Johns. For the Northern St. Johns Region, a non‑ceramic horizon was designated. In the Melbourne Region, a non‑ceramic horizon was considered possible, but not
given definitive status. According to Goggin (1947: 122), no evidence of a preceramic period had been shown for the Melbourne region. Though the work of Wyman and Moore had encountered extensive prepottery deposits, little was known about the culture (123). As an illustration of the compressed time perspective current in some Americanist archaeology at this time, the non‑ceramic period was thought to date between 200 A.D. and 500 A.D., only six thousand years too late. In a revision of his temporal framework the next year, Goggin introduces the name Mt. Taylor to encompass the preceramic period in the Northern St. Johns Region, continuing to include any deposits stratigraphically precedent to ceramics. The northern region continued to include the area to a Cape Canaveral parallel. The Mt. Taylor period concept was not applied to the Melbourne Region, but there no longer remains a question mark to the existence of what is now referred to as a preceramic period (Goggin 1948a: Fig. 12). This paper also marks the usage of Malabar for the post‑Orange ceramic traditions in the upper St. Johns in contrast to the northern region, a direct influence of Rouse (1951). Goggin’s dissertation, Culture and Geography in Florida’s Prehistory, completed at Yale under Rouse, is a remarkable effort at imposing order on Florida’s archaeological record, encompassing the entire state and including data from nearly 1400 sites. Goggin clearly states he has an explicit debt to the culture area concept of Wissler and Kroeber, while recognizing some of the problems
1 The same lake is also known as Lake Cone and Lake Clement. 50 with the method (1948: 13‑16). A formal split is made of the Northern St. Johns and Melbourne regions at the coastal site of Rockledge (1948b). This is further south than the boundary from the above articles, and now bisected Lake Poinsett. The Rockledge division was considered a stopgap measure, as the Melbourne region was under study by Irving Rouse while Goggin was at Yale, and was soon forthcoming in published form (Rouse 1951). Including the area above Rockledge continued to mean that Palmer‑Taylor, Persimmon, and Orange mounds were part of the Northern St. Johns region and are used in his formulation of Mt. Taylor. It was in his dissertation that Goggin first fully developed the organizing principles of his temporal‑cultural constructs. As Weisman demonstrates (2002), Goggin’s system constituted a paradigm, constructed of three main elements, space, time, and tradition (called pattern in his 1948 dissertation), coming together in three dimensions, analogous to a cube. At the same time, the system is hierarchical, with time and space intersecting in areas as periods, with periods being subsumed under traditions. Space and time are generally self‑explanatory; some word need to be said regarding tradition as utilized by Goggin. The concept is most concerned with long‑term material and organizational stability at a general level, with small‑scale change being a constant, but not transformative trait. When formulated as pattern, Goggin defined the term as “a distinct cultural complex which may in the course of time pass through some changes but not enough to alter the basic configuration” (1948b: 214). Soon afterward Goggin (1949) embraced the term tradition, perhaps by Rouse’s influence (Weisman 2002). Goggin distinguished his cultural tradition from the related concept of ceramic tradition, and defined it as:
“A cultural tradition is a distinctive way of life, reflected in various aspects of the culture; perhaps extending through some period of time and exhibiting normal internal cultural changes, but nevertheless throughout this period showing a basic consistent unity. In the whole history of a tradition certain persistent themes dominate the life of the people. These give distinctiveness to the configuration” (Goggin 1949: 17). It was Goggin’s attempt at synthesis for the whole state, i.e., the need for an organizational mechanism, which spurred him to create his constructs; it was the perception of stability, attributable mainly to there being little perceived change in the artifactual record, which helped to determine 51 the features of the constructs. The Archaic tradition, which includes the Mt. Taylor period, is marked by semi‑sedentary populations subsisting through hunting, fishing, and gathering. Pottery is present only in the later part of the tradition, and is only considered an addition to the existing Archaic pattern. The large St. Johns shell heaps are a major site type, but “camp” sites with less refuse are also found. Artifacts are rare, mainly bone worked into utilitarian forms, chipped stone points, blades, scrapers, and shell tools (1949: 21‑22). Mt. Taylor is referred to as a period, as the construct was used by Willey and Woodbury (1942: 236). The hope was that periods would prove to represent distinct cultures, i.e., that there would be a direct correspondence between material and ethnic identities. In the formal definition, there is little detail about Mt. Taylor beyond that already provided for the Archaic tradition. The area of Mt. Taylor is charted as the middle and lower St. Johns basins, with the sites of focus in this dissertation originally included (Goggin 1948b). The vast majority of data come from the Wyman and Moore excavations, and thereby was heavily biased to burial mound contexts, which are without question interpreted as middens. These “middens” are described as being composed of shellfish, varying amounts of sand, ash, humus, and faunal remains, including terrestrial and aquatic species. “There is some stratification in the deposits but it apparently has little cultural significance” (Goggin 1948b: 157). Some attention is paid to the diverse character of the shell deposits in the shell heaps and to the presence of hearths. The Mt. Taylor Mound in the middle St. Johns basin served as the type site for the Mt. Taylor period. This was a large shell heap, nearby to the Bluffton complex. Moore had recovered a relatively abundant artifact assemblage from the preceramic deposits, and this collection provided data towards explicating the period. Artifacts associated with the Mt. Taylor period are few, and are interpreted as being indicative of a simple cultural complex. The same types that are described for the Archaic tradition are characteristic of Mt. Taylor, with no additions. Tool types include bone, shell, and stone artifacts, but all are sparse. The only artifacts that Goggin recognizes as having artistic value are the occasional engraved/incised bone pins, but these are still rare (Goggin 52 1948a: 159‑160; 1952: 42). There is minimal discussion of burials and mortuary patterns for the Mt. Taylor period. Again describing burials as being made in middens, Goggin lists only three sites with burials: Orange Mound, Persimmon Mound, and Osceola Mound (1948b: 160‑161). Two of these would be dropped from inclusion later when the division between the Northern St. Johns and Indian River (Malabar) regions was shifted to Lake Harney (Rouse 1951; Goggin 1952). Eight burials are recognized at Persimmon, one at Orange, and a sawed femur is reported for Osceola. Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, hosted an important conference in 1949 focusing on the archaeology of Florida and relationships to other geographical areas: the southeastern United States, Middle America, and South America (Griffin 1949). Goggin’s paper at this conference was a synopsis of his dissertation work and outline for Florida’s prehistory. In this paper, Goggin laid out his concept of tradition and sketched the details of the traditions in Florida (1949). Combined with the other papers of this conference, the rough framework of Florida archaeology was felt to be generally worked out, with a call for future work to focus on particular problems and issues. As stated, with the publication of A Survey of Indian River Archeology in 1951, the southern boundary of the Northern St. Johns region was shifted northward to the outlet of Lake Harney and the name for the region was changed from Melbourne to Indian River. From a geographic standpoint, this is a more sensible division, as it segregates the upper St. Johns basin from the middle and upper St. Johns. Archaeologically, this division was meant to accent a perceived material‑culture difference: the greater abundance of Glades ware pottery in the Indian River region and adjacent upper St. Johns basin. This new division also separated Palmer‑Taylor, Buzzard’s Roost, Orange, and Persimmon mounds from other Mt. Taylor sites, being placed into the Preceramic period by Rouse (1951: 238‑239). Relatively extensive excavations at South Indian Field (Br 23) provided a solid stratigraphic sequence of cultural materials spanning the Orange through Malabar II periods (Ferguson 1951; Rouse 1951). The data as reported do not include a preceramic component. South Indian Field is far up the headwaters of the upper St. Johns on the edge of glades, near a small lake with the 53 appropriate name of Hell‑N‑Blazes, often found on modern maps in the genteel Helen Blazes version. If traveling by river to get to this point, which few actually do, you are quite certain that Hell‑N‑Blazes is the place destined. A political science Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, Edwards conducted excavations soon after the Yale project at the very nearby Br 27, the Helen‑Blazes site, for his dissertation (Edwards 1954). This work recovered mainly preceramic artifacts, mostly chipped stone bifaces. Edwards makes an argument for at least some of the projectile points being types found in Late Pleistocene contexts. At least one of the points appears to be a Middle Archaic type (Edwards 1954: Fig. 27 A). This is the last professional excavation in the extreme upper St.
Johns for over 20 years (Sigler‑Eisenberg 1985). Though now segregated from other Mt. Taylor period sites by geography and category, it was the excavations at Palmer‑Taylor by the Excavators’ Club that allowed for a somewhat more robust characterization of the preceramic. Rouse includes Palmer‑Taylor, Buzzard’s Roost, Orange, and Persimmon mounds in the preceramic period, as well as the so‑called “Early Man” sites Br 44, Br 45, Br 47, and Ir 9. The “Early Man” sites were instances of likely fortuitous associations of human remains and Pleistocene fauna, and are not considered to be clearly contemporary with Mt. Taylor. An additional site, Br 36, is a coastal shell heap with no pottery reported from an avocational excavation, but there is not sufficient data to be certain of the assignment. Rouse noted that the known sites were all found in marshy/swampy areas. Making an astute observation from the data at hand, he proposed that this was a time of lower water levels. Based on the Excavators’ Club data from Palmer‑Taylor, he noted that the preceramic deposits lay on top of the natural soil surface, and were capped by muck. Atop this muck, artifacts from later pottery‑using cultures are found. Rouse also advanced that a lack of preceramic shell heaps on the Indian River or immediate coast was due to a different ecological regime that was not conducive to shellfish propagation. He noted that if Br 36 does date to the preceramic period, it would be an exception. It is not clear why he did not include Oak Hill (Nelson 1918) in his reasoning. He makes the lack of shellfish/different ecology inference based on the “Early Man” sites listed above, but the archaeological situation of these sites is muddled. 54 Reviewing habitation sites, Rouse asserts that: “All the sites apparently consist of the remains of small camps or villages” (1951: 238). This assessment includes all the shell heaps and the Early Man sites. The shell mound sites discussed in this dissertation are included, apparently in the category of villages. Mortuary remains are listed for Palmer‑Taylor, Persimmon, Orange mounds and the Early Man sites. No other sites are listed as having human remains during the preceramic period. Rouse points out that individual bones have been found at Palmer‑Taylor, and while at least some are from disturbed burials, there are burnt and broken human remains, interpreting this as support for Wyman’s thesis of cannibalism.
The picture of Mt. Taylor put forward during these formative years is of a very simple low‑level foraging culture, with little material possessions and no consideration of the afterlife. In this, Goggin and Rouse did not differ from their predecessors Wyman and Moore. Wyman forwarded the thesis of cannibalism to explain the presence of broken and burnt human bone (1875) and Moore endorsed the view, also doubting that the primitive groups who accumulated the heaps had a sense of interring the dead, particularly in reference to the preceramic deposits (Moore 1893c: 612). Goggin and Rouse both felt that cannibalism was a possibility, and that there was little reverence for the dead. “This indifference towards the dead is emphasized by the lack of burial offerings (Goggin 1952: 66).” With the publication of Space and Time Perspective in Northern St. Johns Archaeology, Florida (Goggin 1952), the details were reified, with little change from the dissertation other than the single area focus, the terminological switch to tradition instead of pattern, and the exclusion of the upper St. Johns sites from consideration in the Northern St. Johns region. The next reported professional work at a Mt. Taylor site is Bullen’s short article on the stratigraphy of the Bluffton shell midden (1955). Virtually all the large shell heaps in the middle and lower St. Johns have been mined for shell to be used in modern construction projects, and Bluffton, which was likely the largest freshwater Mt. Taylor heap areally, was no exception. During the mining of Bluffton, John Griffin and William E. Edwards arranged for salvage operations, conducted by Edwards and Bullen. Bullen fails to provide either a section drawing or photograph of the heap in 55 his report, using a table to illustrate the stratigraphy (Bullen 1955: Table 1). According to this table, the highest point of the shell heap that was recorded was 18 feet (5.5 m) above the ground surface, of which nearly 14 feet (4.3 m) were preceramic deposits. Based on Bullen’s description, this portion of the Bluffton site qualifies as midden (Chapter X), with two adjacent burial mounds. Mining continued at the Bluffton site, and in 1959, William Sears excavated one of the two burial mounds. The mound was to the east side of the large shell heap, away from the river, bordered on the east by two circular ponds. Sears’ excavations revealed clearly that this was a burial mound. A large fire was placed onto an extant shell layer, heavily calcining the shell; atop this burned area a single extended burial was placed. A mound of sand was placed atop this burial, capped by a thin mantle of shell, followed by another lens of sand. This sand was then capped by a layer of black muck, capped by another layer of sand. The mound was then capped by a thick layer of secondarily deposited preceramic midden achieving the final approximate dimensions of sixteen feet (4.9 m) above the ground surface and with a rough ovoid shape measuring nearly 100 feet (30.5 m) across the greatest dimension (Sears 1960). At least four ceramic era burials intruded into the mound, but absolutely no pottery was recovered from the mound itself below 18 inches (48 cm) of the surface. No artifacts dating to the ceramic‑producing periods were found within the mound. Ten shell tool artifacts were found, along with a single projectile point thought to be associated with the “old midden” rather than the burial (Sears 1960: 59). Sears immediately recognized this shell/sand structure as an intentionally constructed mound. He points out that the mound was likely built in a single intensive event, as there was no feathering of the strata at the ground surface, indicative of weathering, nor any indication of tramping of the strata. The final shell layer was clearly basket‑loaded. The combination of materials is what is thought to have provided the stability to the structure (Sears 1960: 58). All of Sears’ interpretations of the stratigraphy are reasonable and supported by the evidence. Then Sears assigns the mound to an unspecific “before” the ceramic St. Johns Ib or Weeden Island periods (1960: 59). Confident of his logic, Sears gave no possible explanation to this obvious violation of the no Archaic mounds 56 model, other than to claim “ambiguous results” and the statement: “This excavation produced some new problems, and contributed to the solution of none” (1960: 56). This mound is now accepted to date to the Mt. Taylor period (Wheeler et al. 2000). The next major excavation of a Mt. Taylor site was the salvage excavations at Tick Island (Harris Creek Mound) in the face of shell mining. Nearly contemporary with the mining of Bluffton was the removal of shell from Harris Creek. An avocational archaeologist conducted surface collections from the site during removal, delineating several areas (Bushnell 1960). Bullen received an emergency grant to conduct salvage work at the site. A posthumous report (Jahn and Bullen 1978) gave some details of the excavations, including general interpretations of the stratigraphy. This report encouraged speculation over the exact archaeological situation (Russo 1994a, 1994b) eventually convincing Lawrence Aten, who had worked with Bullen at the site, to publish a full report of the work (1999).
Ma t u r a t i o n For the next twenty years, archaeology at Mt. Taylor period sites in the St. Johns river basin was limited. Ripley Bullen conducted excavations at the Sunday Bluff site near the Ocklawaha, a tributary of the St. Johns (Bullen 1969). This site, a large shell deposit on a relict oxbow, included artifacts spanning the Mt. Taylor through St. Johns I periods, but did not include human interments. Mound excavations were limited to the field schools at Palmer‑Taylor mound by Rollins College, work has not been commonly reported prior to this dissertation. Interpretations of the Mt. Taylor remained fairly static during this time, though there are some cautious ventures regarding sedentism, village life, and possible mounds (Milanich and Faribanks 1980: 150). Sites with Orange components, but lacking clear Mt. Taylor deposits, excavated during this time include: Summer Haven (Bullen and Bullen 1961), Castle Windy, and the Green Mound (Bullen and Sleight 1959, 1960). During this interim, there were several important salvage excavations of Middle and Early Archaic mortuary ponds and cemeteries. Dredging of wet areas throughout the southern half of the 57 Florida peninsula encountered human remains in several locations, including probably several that have never been recorded (Purdy 1991). Of note are the Republic Groves site in Hardee County (Wharton et al. 1981; Purdy 1991), the Bay West site in Collier County (Beriault et al. 1981; Purdy 1991), and two sites immediately east of the area of the upper St. Johns of concern in this thesis: the Gauthier site near Cocoa Beach (Carr 1981; Sigler‑Eisernberg 1984) and the initial discovery of the Windover site near Titusville (Doran 2002a). At least some of these sites are contemporary with Mt. Taylor, but I would not refer to these sites as Mt. Taylor. In 1984, Brenda Sigler‑Eisenberg lead a stratified‑systematic survey of a portion of the upper
St. Johns basin. This is a very well executed project, accomplished in a difficult topography with a talented staff. Using insights gained from work at the Gauthier site regarding subsistence strategy (overwhelmingly aquatic resource oriented), she postulated a linear trend to the catchment areas. A methodology was devised and executed that would attempt to test a hypothesis of linear settlement structure along the marsh/mesic hammock fringe. Stratified and judgmental transects were utilized, using local macro‑ecological categories for stratification, including the pine flatwoods, mesic hammock, marsh, periodically inundated prairie, and swamps. At 30‑meter intervals along the transects, 25‑50‑100cm test units were excavated and all materials screened through 1/4 inch screen (Sigler‑Eisenberg 1985b: 53‑56). This survey remained one of the only truly systematic surveys anywhere in the St. Johns valley until very recently. At least 11 sites with preceramic deposits were encountered during this survey (Russo 1985) Chronologically, the next important Mt. Taylor research is the excavations at Groves’ Orange Midden. Originally discovered in 1987, archaeological investigations led by Barbara Purdy into saturated deposits on the edge of Lake Monroe near the Old Enterprise site in the middle St. Johns basin provided the first opportunity revisit the concept and content of Mt. Taylor (Purdy 1994a). Revealing a fuller array of material culture than usually found in Middle Archaic contexts due to the preservation of organic artifacts, the results from this site transformed notions of Late Archaic subsistence (Russo et al. 1992; Wheeler and McGee 1994b) and provided opportunity to robustly describe the artifact assemblage (Wheeler and McGee 1994a, 1994c; Purdy 1994b). 58 Firstly, the Groves’ Orange Midden data from test pit excavations in 1989 indicated that subsistence models for the Late Archaic (Cumbaa 1976) that emphasized terrestrial game as the primary protein source were flawed. Assumption of poverty of potential of aquatic resources was not founded, and a model of supplemental use of coastal and riverine in a subsistence strategy that was semi‑nomadic and heavily dependent on terrestrial resources did not fit the data being recovered. Fish and shellfish instead were major components of the diet, and likely the primary resource base; botanical data indicated the gathering of mast and wild fruits and the use of Cucurbita pepo and bottle gourds (Russo et al. 1992). Further excavations at the site, including units in the completely saturated deposits offshore, revealed inundated two primary aceramic midden strata separated by a layer of peat, with localized sand, shell, and organic deposits. A generally stratigraphically consistent series of radiocarbon dates spanned the range from 6210 +/‑ 60 to 3160 +/‑ 65 uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present (McGee and Wheeler 1994). An impressive artifact assemblage was recovered, including numerous wooden (Wheeler and McGee 1994c), bone, dental, antler, and shell examples, as well as fired‑clay biconcial, spherical, and amorphous objects (Wheeler and McGee 1994a). Chipped stone tools were similar to contemporary contexts excavated elsewhere (Purdy 1994b), while a few fragments of non‑local stone artifacts indicate at least some limited exchange with other areas of the southeast United States (Wheeler and McGee 1994a). A more comprehensive listing of utilized botanical species indicates a wide spectrum of wild fruits, vines, seedy plants, trees, and herbs (Newsom 1994). Groves’ Orange Midden has substantially increased our knowledge of Mt. Taylor material culture and subsistence. In the early 1990’s, Michael Russo conducted survey near the mouth of the St. Johns river that began to overturn more of the assumptions of the standard paradigm of Mt. Taylor. Extant models asserted that there was an absence of coastal usage prior to the Orange period, due mainly to climatic conditions (e.g., Rouse 1951; Goggin 1952; Griffin and Miller 1978). Russo located five preceramic sites, along with another dozen with possible preceramic deposits (Russo 1992). This work, along with the reassessment of several other coastal sites (Ste. Claire 1990), clearly 59 demonstrated that the coast was extensively used during the preceramic.It was during this era that the idea that Archaic monuments were a reality coalesced into some whole that allowed it to enter the realm of discussion in Eastern Woodlands archaeology (e.g., Charles and Buikstra 1983; Hofman 1986; Claassen 1991a, 1991b; Russo 1991; Russo 1994b; Piatek 1994; Saunders et al. 1997) eventually spuring Lawrence Aten to revisit the 1961 excavations of Harris Creek (1999). Aten provides the first robust description of a Mt. Taylor burial mound, detailing the stratigraphy, burials, artifacts, and construction history. With the publication of Aten’s report, the structure of a Mt. Taylor burial monument was demonstrated, if not always accepted. Soon after the excavations at Groves’ Orange Midden, the acquisition of the extant remnants of two of the largest Mt. Taylor sites by the state of Florida, Bluffton and Mt. Taylor, provided opportunity for Ryan Wheeler and associates to present a thorough reassessment of Mt. Taylor as
an archaeological construct (Wheeler et al. 2000)2. The Wheeler et al. paper is a comprehensive overview of the state of knowledge of Mt. Taylor, and at present is the datum for the archaeology of the period. The authors review the chronology, settlement patterns, site arrangement and form, artifacts, subsistence, exchange networks, decorative arts, mortuary patterns, including the potential for intentional mounds, contemporary mortuary ponds, and possible origins of Mt. Taylor (2000: 142‑155). As would be expected, for some arenas, we know very little, but for others, particularly artifacts, a great deal is now known. Beginning in 2000, Kenneth Sassaman of the University of Florida began a program of survey and excavation in the middle St. Johns executed through field schools (Sassaman 2003; Randall
2 Unfortunately, the authors refer to Mt. Taylor as a culture in the paper title, and as a period in most instances of the text. This conflation of terminology is not unique: Milanich also uses the two terms interchangeably and at- tributes the naming of Mt. Taylor culture to Goggin (Milanich 1994: 88). Weisman (2002: 157) traces the thrust of the revision to Milanich (1971, 1973) and his graduate students, but the effort has been primarily limited to chang- ing the names, not defining the concepts. Other authors have used Mt. Taylor as culture (Randall 2005: 18), and in a more egregious misapplication, Mt. Taylor is sometimes referred to as a phase by Johnson (2002: Table 1), and at other times as a culture (e.g., 2002: 17). Dickel and Doran (2002: 56) also refer to Mt. Taylor as a phase, citing Goggin 1952. I know of no published formal definitions of Mt. Taylor as a culture or a phase. While this may seem a trifling issue, archaeological constructs are not interchangeable. In the original definition Goggin (1948) refers to Mt. Taylor as a period: that construct is used in this dissertation. 60 and Sassaman 2005). Sassaman’s research interests soon led to the preceramic, and starting with limited work at Live Oak Mound in 2001, this timeframe has become a central focus of the UF program. Extremely important work on Hontoon Island is ongoing, and is already changing our ideas about the Mt. Taylor period. Several students of Sassaman have assisted with the field schools, conducted research, or are actively conducting research concerned with the Mt. Taylor period, including Asa Randall, Megan Blessing, Jon Endonino, and Peter Hallman. This is the modern era of research, with a conscious effort to shrug off the standard paradigm of Mt. Taylor culture and society and a willingness to engage the possibility of intentional construction of burial mounds, sedentism, emergent complexity, and built landscapes. 61 Ch a p t e r 5: Mt. Ta y l o r a s a Te m p o r a l Co n s t r u ct “Time doesn’t exist... there is only a perpetual present” Claude Chabrol, La Fleur du mal (2003)
This section redefines the preceramic Mt. Taylor period of the upper and middle St.Johns River basins in Florida and presents a new temporal construct termed the Thornhill Lake period. Significant differences in mortuary modes, artifact types, the presence of non-local stone, and radiocarbon dates warrant creation of a new period with the aim of providing greater temporal resolution to the archaeology of the Middle and Late Archaic (Mid-Holocene era) in the region. During this period of time we find the earliest evidence for monument construction, long-distance exchange, incipient agriculture, social complexity, and warfare (Anderson, Russo, and Sassaman 2007). Through the efforts of this paper, it is hoped we can gain a better understanding of the timing and conditions for these important phenomena. Each period is summarized with a general background followed by brief descriptions of the burial modes, grave inclusions, nature of burial strata, non-local materials, and shell artifacts for each. Following these summaries, an analysis of published radiocarbon dates is detailed and related to the period descriptions. Material details for the Mt. Taylor period follows Goggin=s original formulation (1948) while the two burial mounds at Thornhill Lake excavated by Moore (1894a; 1894b) serve as the type site for the Thornhill Lake period. Mound and non-mound contexts are utilized, with information coming from published excavation reports and the four upper St. Johns sites studied (Figure 1). I propose to restate the chronological span of the Mt. Taylor period and develop a temporal definition of the Thornhill Lake period, based in part on the calibration of the knownsetof radiocarbon dates. Specific criteria are found below, but time spans for each period are estimated as: Mt. Taylor: 7300-5600 cal 14C yr BP, Thornhill Lake: 5600-4500 cal 14C yr BP, Orange: 4500- 2500 cal 14C yr BP (Table 1).
Mt. Ta y l o r Pe r i o d Sp e c i f i c s John Goggin provided the original definition of the Mt. Taylor period (1948, 1949, 1952). The 62 period was marked by the presence of large shell heaps composed primarily of local shellfish, an absence of pottery, and occasional stone and bone tools. Populations were likely semi-sedentary, practicing a mixed subsistence strategy including hunting, fishing, and gathering. According to Goggin, domestic and ritual life were very simple, and mortuary practice was at the crudest level of development, with cannibalism likely practiced. Preceramic sites with bannerstones, stone beads, extended burials, and mounds were not part of the Mt. Taylor period, but were originally placed in an Unclassified Complex, (Goggin 1952: 51-53). It is now clear that these sites date to the Late Archaic, contemporary with other sites with bannerstones in the Eastern Woodlands (Jefferies 1996; Piatek 1994) and recently, the tendency has been to include all upper and middle St. Johns preceramic shell heap sites in the Mt. Taylor period, including those originally included in the Unclassified Complex (Wheeler et al. 2000; Mitchem 1999).
Burial Modes Aten=s report on the excavations at Harris Creek (1999) provides excellent documentation and discussion of Mt. Taylor mortuary modes, and this paper throughout is greatly indebted to his work. Interments are found in six basic configurations: flexed burials, broken and commingled bones, bundled burials, isolated crania, with or without longbones, isolated bones, and most rarely, extended. There may be burning of the bone with any of these configurations, but it does not appear that cremation is ever the intent. Flexed burials are the most common mode found: 98% of the burials recognized at Harris Creek are flexed (Aten 1999). Flexed burials are also present at Palmer-Taylor, Orange, and Persimmon Mounds. Isolated human bones seem liable to show up anywhere. Solitary crania, usually with some of the long bones, are found at Harris Creek, and may
Archaeological Period Calibrated 14C Date Range Mt. Taylor 7300-5600 BP Thornhill Lake 5600-4500 BP Orange 4500-2500 BP
Table 1: Chronology of the Mid-Holocene in the Upper St. Johns 63 be at other sites. Bundled burials are quite rare, two are known from Harris Creek, and one from Orange Mound. Broken and commingled human bones are found at Harris Creek, Palmer-Taylor and Persimmon II; evidence at Orange Mound is tenuous, and the group of eight burials directly on sand at Persimmon Mound is a community burial, if not commingled. A single extended burial was found at Harris Creek, and comes from the upper levels of the mounds. Extended burials were found in the uppermost burial stratum at Orange mound, but based on factors discussed below, this stratum likely falls within the Thornhill Lake period.
Grave Inclusions Clear Agrave goods@ are very rare in Mt. Taylor mortuary mounds. At Harris Creek, only 22 burials (12%) have possible artifact association, primarily simple bone pins (Figure 3). Some burials have multiple associations, and some associations include multiple artifacts. Five of these associations are certain, fourteen are considered possible, and there are nine instances of artifacts found near to burials (Aten 1999: Table 5). For four upper St. Johns mound sites studied, there are probably less than a dozen artifacts in clear Mt. Taylor contexts, and only a fraction of those were associated with burials. Of the artifacts at Harris Creek associated with burials, most were biface chipped stone tools, but bone beads, antler hair pieces, and bone pins were also found. Aten postulates that burials may have been wrapped in textiles or skins when placed in grave pits, held closed with the bone pins. Faunal remains are commonly found with burials. At Harris Creek, animal bone was found with several burials, as well as on a mound summit where it is interpreted as evidence of repeated feasting (Aten 1999: 180). Moore commonly reports animal bones with human remains in upper St. Johns sites. This includes a repeated association of faunal remains, fire places, and commingled human bone at Palmer-Taylor and Persimmon II, the lower burial stratum at Orange, and perhaps the mortuary stratum at Persimmon Mound. The association of fire places and burnt and broken human and animal bones at Palmer-Taylor and Persimmon II affirmed Moore=s opinion of no original intent of burial and that these were Acannibalistic feasts@ (1893b: 612). Though there is a perception that faunal remains (other than shell) are commonly found throughout Mt. 64 Taylor mortuary mound strata, that is not the case. Faunal remains are almost always localized and in association with burials.
Burial Strata Matrix Moore regularly refers to the matrix of Mt. Taylor sites as composed of the same material as the shell heaps, i.e., middens, and shell is the dominate matrix constituent in all burial-bearing strata of the Mt.
Figure 3: Bone Pins Taylor mortuary mounds discussed here, but rarely is it pure shell. At Palmer-Taylor, Orange, Harris Creek, and Persimmon II varying amounts of sand or soil was mixed with the shell. Large and small deposits of white sand are found at Persimmon Mound, Orange Mound, and Harris Creek. Other localized deposits may also be present. Hearths/ fire places/charcoal concentrations are commonly found, but are mainly either in direct association with grave pits or are restricted to a stratigraphic interface. In strata matrix, Pomacea sp. and Vivaparus sp., both freshwater snails, generally dominate the shell species, with occasional Unios. Excepting the presence of burials and white sand, there is little to distinguish the matrix of Mt. Taylor burial strata from midden deposits. However, there are substantial distinctions between these strata and those found at Thornhill Lake and discussed below. Full descriptions of stratigraphy are found in Chapter 8.
Non-local Stone In Mt. Taylor contexts, non-local stone, meaning stone from outside Florida, is very rare. This includes chipped stone and ground stone artifacts (Figure 4). Of the chipped stone artifacts at Groves= Orange Midden, only Florida stone, mostly from Tampa Bay area sources, was recovered (Purdy 1994). Aten (1999) does not report any extra-Florida chipped stone artifacts at Harris Creek, nor does Bullen report non-local chipped stone at Bluffton (1955). Groundstone artifacts of non-local material are also exceptional in Mt. Taylor contexts. 65 One steatite bannerstone fragment is reported from the sand layer underneath the lower shell midden stratum at Groves= Orange Midden (Wheeler and McGee 1994: 372- 373), but the published provenience information does not make it clear if the artifact is actually from under the shell or beyond the edge of the midden. Bullen reports a single steatite bannerstone fragment from an upper level of the preceramic strata at Bluffton (1955: Table 1), but this is from Thornhill Lake era deposits. No non-local groundstone is reported for Harris Creek, Palmer-Taylor, Orange, Persimmon Mound, or Persimmon II. Stone from outside Florida seems to be absent in Mt. Taylor contexts Figure 4: Archaic Stemmed Point, throughout the upper St. Johns. By contrast, non-local Buzzard’s Roost groundstone artifacts are relatively common in Thornhill Lake period contexts, described below.
Shell Artifacts Shell artifacts found in Mt. Taylor contexts are generally utilitarian, and most all are from Busycon shell. Edged and pounding tools dominate (Figure 5; Aten 1999: 159-160). It is the absence of two particular shell artifact types that help distinguish Mt. Taylor from Thornhill Lake period deposits: Strombus gigas celts and shell beads. S. gigas celts are found in preceramic contexts, but tend to be Figure 5: Busycon Shell Tools concentrated in the upper levels. A fuller 66 discussion of contexts producing S. gigas celts is below. There is no reference to S. gigas artifacts of any type from the Mt. Taylor deposits at Harris Creek (Aten 1999; Wheeler et al.2000 ), or from the upper St. Johns mortuary monuments reviewed. While less certain, it also appears that shell beads are absent from Mt. Taylor period strata. No shell beads were reported with burials at Harris Creek or any of the upper St. Johns mounds reviewed.
Ba c k g r o u n d t o t h e Th o r n h i l l La k e Pe r i o d Description of the Thornhill Lake period will be based primarily on the type site of the same name. The Thornhill Lake site complex (Figure 6) consists of three recognized components, a large sand burial mound (8Vo58), a small sand burial mound (8Vo59), and a shell heap (8Vo60). This site is located on Thornhill Lake, a small lagoon or slough on the east side of the St. Johns.
Depression/ Swampy
1892 Exc. 4 Shell Field 1892 Exc. 3 1892 Trench
1892 Exc. 2 1892 Exc. 5 Near End 1892 Exc. 1 of Crescent 1894 Trench Near Apex 7 Burials of Crescent Small Mound
1892 Trench 7 Burials 50 Yards Crescentic Ridge
Large Mound 1894 “Demolished” 42-47 Burials Depression
Thornhill Lake
Figure 6: Sketch Map of the Thornhill Lake Site (not to scale) 67 Mitchem (1999: 30) has assigned the two burial mounds to the Mt. Taylor period, as have Wheeler et al. (2000). Recently, John Endinino of the University of Florida has conducted excavations at Thornhill Lake. However, this data has not been published at the time of this writing, and derivation of Thornhill Lake period is independent of his research. As preceramic sites in the St. Johns basin go, the Thornhill Lake site complex qualifies as Aspectacular.@ At least 57 individuals were encountered between the two sand mounds, mostly extended burials. A relative abundance of Aprestige goods@ was recovered during excavation, including profuse shell beads, eight bannerstones, two pendants from bannerstone wings, and a large number of stone beads. In an area where non-local artifacts are generally exceptional, A. . . the mounds at Thornhill Lake stand alone@ (Moore 1894b: 170). Exceptional is often taken as enigmatic, and that has certainly been the case for the Thornhill Lake site. While the artifacts found were quite notable, it was what was absent in the mounds that caused the greatest disconcertment. ANot one particle of pottery plain or marked@ (Moore
FN1: 95)1was found below the surface, but the mounds were constructed primarily of sand, a trait thought to be associated with later pottery-producing periods. The possibility that the mounds truly predated ceramic technology was unacceptable to Moore, despite the obvious explanation:
AThis almost total absence of sherds and earthenware, fragmentary or otherwise, is entirely novel in our investigation of Indian mounds devoted to the purpose of sepulture, and it is evident that, with the makers of the mounds at Thornhill Lake, the custom of interring earthenware with the dead did not obtain B an unlooked for departure@ (Moore 1894b: 173). Moore would suggest, that contrary to the implications of his own work, he could not determine if the makers of the shell-heaps built sand burial mounds. Having reviewed Orange, Persimmon, and Thornhill Lake as sand mounds without pottery, he says this does not mean that they were built by the same folks as who built the aceramic shell-heaps. Instead, using the finding of two sherds from Thornhill Lake as his only evidence, two sherds he says are of accidental introduction, Moore
1 Field notebooks of C.B. Moore are referred to throughout by FN#, corresponding to the microfilm roll number originally assigned by Davis (1987) and how they are still indexed at Cornell University. 68 argues that the absence of earthenware is no proof that the builders did not posses the technology (1894b: 210). Sixty years later, the Thornhill Lake site remained problematic. John Goggin placed the site into an Unclassifed Complex, along with other sites producing bannerstones: Mt. Oswald (Tomoka
Mound) Shields Mound, Coontie Island, the surface of Bluffton2 (of Strombus shell), Dillon=s Grove, Salt Run Midden 2, and Stokes Landing midden. Bannerstones were also known from elsewhere in the state, including the Indian River area , the Manatee Region, the Glades area, central Florida, and the central Gulf Coast area. Goggin knew that bannerstones and stone beads dated from preceramic times throughout the Eastern Woodlands including the Tennessee Valley, Green River, and Poverty Point. However, the Thornhill Lake mounds were without a doubt sand burial mounds, and sand burial mounds were only supposed to be post-Archaic, forcing Goggin into the position of placing the site in an unclassifed complex with a likely temporal placement in the St. Johns I period or later. An explanation of heirlooming or imitation of earlier practice was suggested. The issue seems to have nagged Goggin however, and he did not think it settled: AThis represents one of the most interesting problems of the region@ (Goggin 1952: 51-53). Beginning in 1992, Bruce Piatek commenced limited excavations at the Tomoka Mound
Complex, from where Douglass had recovered eight bannerstones in the 19th century. Working in Mound 6 Piatek encountered strata composed of sand and shell. An uncalibrated radiocarbon date of 4060 +/- 70 on coquina shell from the base of the mound indicated an Archaic construction, an interpretation congruent with the bannerstones and absence of pottery at the site (Piatek 1994). The Tomoka Mound date is the only radiocarbon date in the St. Johns region in a context that produced bannerstones. However, a recent project at the Lake Monroe Outlet Midden (8V053) produced artifacts that align the site closely with Thornhill Lake and other preceramic sites with lapidary items. This site, approximately 15 km down river from the Thornhill Lake site, was subjected to salvage operations prior to the expansion of a bridge over the St. Johns. Excavations
2 Mistakenly called Mt. Taylor by Goggin (1952: 52). 69 included three large test units and eleven trenches. Within Unit C, an assemblage was recovered that included 266 disc shell beads and a tubular stone bead. In Unit B, well over 100 microliths suitable for shell bead production were found. A few tubular shell beads were also found (Johnson 2001: Tables 5.7, 7.3, Figure 5.21). These artifacts recall the findings at the Thornhill Lake site of profuse shell beads and stone beads. Radiocarbon dates from the site cluster in the 4600-4800 uncalibrated radiocarbon years range (Johnson 2001: 9.1). It seems reasonable to cross-date the Thornhill Lake site with the Lake Monroe Outlet Midden. A tubular stone bead and radiocarbon dates from the upper midden at Groves= Orange Midden (Wheeler and McGee 1994b; McGee and Wheeler 1994) correlates with the data from Lake Monroe and is assigned to the Thornhill Lake period.
Th o r n h i l l La k e Pe r i o d Sp e c i f i c s This section is based on Moore= published descriptions of his excavations at Thornhill Lake (1894a: 88-89; Moore 1894b: 167-173) and his unpublished field notes from the site (FN 1: 88-96; FN2: 62-67; FN5: 71-76; FN6: 73-76). Moore excavated several units into the shell deposits that are not directly informative to the issue at hand, but deserve further attention. The focus here is on his findings from the two burial mounds (Figure 6). Moore excavated twice at the Thornhill Lake site, in 1892 and again in 1894. He described the site initially as a shell field with a crescent shaped shell ridge with the points toward the water, but later scratched through the crescent shaped shell ridge mentions, perhaps thinking that the description implied too much intentionality. At the center and apex of the ridge was the smaller of the two sand mounds. He describes it as 8 feet, 10 2 inches (2.7 m) above the ground surface, but this includes the underlying shell deposit. The mound measured 295 feet (90 m) in circumference (28.6 m diameter). A trench was excavated on the west side of this smaller mound in 1892, measuring 22 feet (6.7 m) by 7 feet (2.1 m) and 3.5 feet (1.1 m) deep to the underlying shell ridge. In this trench was found an alligator tooth with cut marks, a quartz pebble, and a single flint flake. No bones of any sort were found, nor any pottery. The lack of bone in this test spurred Moore to 70 strike out all references to this small mound as a burial mound in his notes. Moore=s description of this work is in contrast to the opinion of Mitchem that he did not dig into the smaller mound in 1892 (1999: 27). Upon Moore=s return to the site in 1894, he conducted additional trenches along the fringes of the smaller mound, again finding nothing. A trench into the central portion of the smaller mound however encountered 7 extended burials. On the chest of three of these burials (1894b: 170), Moore describes the finding of shell beads and Arude ceremonial implements@ (FN5: 73) of soft stone, much softer than the bannerstones from the large mound described shortly. The larger burial mound is described as 11 feet (3.4 m) in height, 425 feet (130 m) in circumference (41.23 m diameter). Moore locates the mound between the horns of the crescentic ridge, approximately 50 yards (45.8 m) from the small mound and upon the shell field. There was a marked depression south of the mound (towards the water) that may be the source of the mound material. Moore conducted several excavations into the large mound in 1892, beginning with a large unit in the apex of the mound and multiple trenches. A total of seven burials were encountered during this 1892 operation, including two that were flexed, two that were positively extended, and three that were likely extended. At least some of the extended burials had the hands folded across the abdomen. He also found an isolated burnt human humerus fragment. With one of these burials were found shell beads and a chipped stone biface. Returning to the site in 1894, Moore completely excavated the larger mound, encountering at least 42 additional burials, including a few with extensive grave furniture discussed further below. It appears that all the burials encountered in 1894 were extended.
Burial Modes In contrast to the rarity of extended burials in Mt. Taylor mortuary mounds, the dominate interment configuration at Thornhill Lake is extended burial. Of the approximately 57 burials found at the site, only two are reported as flexed. These were found relatively shallow, and may be intrusive from much later (cf. Sears 1960). A preponderance of extended burials is in stark contrast 71 to the situation at Mt. Taylor mortuary monuments, where only one extended burial is reported out of the hundreds known. I place the upper burial stratum at Orange Mound in the Thornhill Lake period, based in part on the presence of only extended burials in this stratum. No lapidary artifacts were recovered by Moore from the burials at Orange Mound, but his excavations were limited, especially compared to his near demolition of the mounds at Thornhill Lake. Fortunately, Orange Mound still exists, so this can be tested in the future. With trepidation, I would place the Bluffton Burial Mound 2 in this period, based in part on the presence of an extended burial, but also due to other specific similarities with Thornhill Lake, namely: burning of the underlying shell, mound strata of sand and shell (including redeposited midden in both cases), and the burial being found in a sand matrix (Sears 1960).
Grave Inclusions At Thornhill Lake, one of the burials in the larger mound was found with an enormous amount of material, including large circular shell beads (Figure 7), tubular shell beads, Agreat quantities@ of small shell beads, and 19 red stone beads. At the wrists of this individual were found miniature bannerstones. Upon the chest was a winged bannerstone. Near the neck, Awith beads in great profusion@ (1894c: 168) was found a decaying stone gorget and a pendant shaped from the wing of a bannerstone (Figure 8). Also found with this burial was a perforated shark tooth and fragments of charcoal. With another burial was found a few shell beads and another pendant shaped from the wing of a bannerstone. Several other burials had stone beads, others were found with just shell beads, a few described as tubular. There are marked difference between the artifacts associated with burials in Mt. Taylor period contexts and Thornhill Lake period contexts. Not all burials have grave accouterments, but many do. One burial had a tremendous amount of material, Figure 7: Shell Beads others have abundant material, some have only a 72 little, and some have no additional artifacts buried with them. While the presence of funerary objects is one of the main features that serve to distinguish Thornhill Lake from Mt. Taylor period burials, it is likely that most Thornhill Lake period burials do not have associated elaborate artifacts. If the upper burial stratum at Orange Mound and the Bluffton burial mound excavated by Sears do fall in the Thornhill Lake period, no grave inclusions were found at either location. There are however a fair number of bannerstones and stone beads that have been found in the St. Johns region, and other Figure 8: Bannerstones, Thornhill Lake examples of burials with Asumptuous@ mortuary furniture may still be found.
Burial Strata Matrix The smaller mound at Thornhill Lake is described as being composed of brown sand and shell heap material. It seems that these are alternating strata of unknown number, but there are some frustratingly difficult ambiguities with Moore=s stratigraphic descriptions from this site, in contrast to most of his work. It is clear though that neither mound was of pure sand. In the larger mound, strata of white sand, brown sand and shell, and shell are described. At the central base of the mound was a calcined shell/charcoal surface, apparently across the whole mound base, and charcoal was found throughout the mound fill (FN 6: 73-76). Brown sand with shell, white sand, and shell strata were present in the mound; the burial with the multiple bannerstones is in shell with white sand above and below. A greater abundance of brown sand within the burial-bearing strata appears to contrast Thornhill Lake period mortuary monuments with Mt. Taylor period mortuary monuments (Figure 9). White sand continues to be an element of the monument building program (and remains a component of the 73
Figure 9: Bluffton Burial Mound Section
St. Johns mound building tradition through the historic period), but brown sand is found in greater abundance. Thornhill Lake period mounds also are more likely to be of a composite character, with alternating strata of sand with a little shell, redeposited shell midden, and occasionally local clays. During both periods, a large fire is typically built atop an extant shell midden surface immediately prior to mound construction. In the Mt. Taylor period, commingled human bone may be piled on this fire while burning. At Thornhill Lake period sites, human remains are not placed until the fire is extinguished, but there was limited burning on a burial at the Thornhill Lake site.
Non-local Stone There is a substantially greater presence of stone from outside Florida in Thornhill Lake period contexts than Mt. Taylor period contexts. With the exception of the steatite bannerstone fragment from beneath the lower midden stratum at Groves= Orange Midden, there does not appear to be any lapidary items of non-local lithic sources in any of the Mt. Taylor levels of sites reviewed, including steatite vessel fragments. The material types of the bannerstones found at the Thornhill Lake site is not given in most instances. One gorget is described as limestone, and two of the stone artifacts found in the smaller burial mound are described as being of phosphate rock, the other referred to as serpentine (Figure 8). The other bannerstones and pendants are not described as to material, but are made from a hard stone not native to the state. The stone beads are described as catlinite by Moore, and jasper by Goggin (Figure 10). In either case, they are certainly non-local (Moore 1894b: 169-170; Goggin 74 1952: 52). A stone bead found in the upper midden stratum at Groves= Orange Midden is made of steatite (Wheeler and McGee 1994), and a stone bead found at the Lake Monroe Outlet Midden is from a non-local stone, perhaps claystone or shale (Johnson 2001). Stone beads and bannerstones from Coontie Island are also of non-local Figure 10: Stone Beads material (Wheeler et al. 2000: 151- 152).
Shell Artifacts Wheeler et al. (2000: 151-152) have noted the absence of S. gigas and groundstone artifacts at Harris Creek, and think that there may be a temporal component to this pattern, as well as being an indicator of participation in larger areal exchange networks that included southeast Florida (Figure 11). I heartily agree, and assert that these artifact types only appear during the Thornhill Lake period. Strombus artifacts are consistently restricted to the upper levels of preceramic deposits in the St. Johns. Of relevance, a bannerstone crafted of a S. gigas shell lip was recovered at the Bluffton site (Wheeler et al. 2000: 152; Moore 1898). Figure 11: Strombus Celts 75 At Bluffton, S. gigas celts are found only in Layer III (Bullen 1955: Table 1). At Groves= Orange Midden (Wheeler and McGee 1994: Table 4), the artifacts are only found in the upper midden stratum and above (Thornhill Lake-Orange periods). Two celts were recovered at the Lake Monroe Outlet Midden (Johnson 2001: Table 7.3) in deposits that date to the Thornhill Lake period. At the Hill Cottage Midden, on the west coast of Florida, Bullen recovered a S. gigas celt in strata postdating Mt. Taylor, but based on calibrated radiocarbon dates, contemporary with Thornhill Lake. Shell beads are also be of temporal importance. At the Thornhill Lake site, shell beads were the most common artifact found with burials. In Mt. Taylor burials, shell beads are not typically found. One possible shell bead from Palmer-Taylor (Stewart 1976) is the only example I am aware of, and it was not directly associated with a grave. No shell beads are reported at Harris Creek (Aten 1999). Shell Figure 12: Microliths bead production appears to have been undertaken at the Lake Orange Outlet Midden, with hundreds of shell beads found in one unit, and well over one hundred microliths found in another (Figure 12; Johnson 2001). Tubular and disc forms are found, but shell species for either is not yet determined. Shell beads in preceramic contexts are consistently found exclusively in Thornhill Lake period deposits.
Ra d i o c a r bo n Ch r o n o l o g y Current definitions date the Mt. Taylor period from between 6000 BP to 4000 BP (Wheeler et al. 2000: 143). As originally stated, Mt. Taylor included everything prior to appearance of pottery in the northern St. Johns region (Goggin 1952: 40-41), but continued research has refined the chronology, with Paleoindian, Early Archaic, Middle Archaic, and Late Archaic periods described (Milanich and Fairbanks 1980; Milanich 1994). As previously defined, the Mt. Taylor period ends 76 with the appearance of fiber-tempered ceramics, the type artifact of the Orange period. Sassaman has placed the earliest use of fiber-tempered pottery in the southeast at approximately 4500 BP (1993: 22).
Methodology In order to test the hypothesis that the material differences in the archaeological deposits described above have chronological implications, I assembled radiocarbon assays from contexts representative of the proposed temporal constructs. These dates were then calibrated and seriated based on the oldest value at the 2-sigma range. Once seriated, the ordering of the sites was reviewed for stratigraphic integrity and compared to the archaeological contexts from which they originated. A robust correlation between radiocarbon sequence, stratigraphic sequence, and material culture as described is interpreted as supporting the hypothesis. I have attempted to use only dates from secure contexts in the St. Johns basin, with one site from a coastal lagoon in the St. Johns region: the radiocarbon date on coquina shell from the Tomoka Mound site complex in northeast Florida of ca. 4600 BP (Piatek 1994: 115) that has become the datum for the end of the Mt. Taylor period (Table 2). A set of four dates from Harris Creek and five samples from the lower levels of Groves Orange Midden have served to reinforce the 6000 BP date for the inception of Mt. Taylor (Wheeler et al. 2000; Jahn and Bullen 1978; Aten 1999; McGee and Wheeler 1994). The other assays used in this analysis include: the eight dates from the upper levels at Groves= Orange Midden, one date on charcoal from a fire place in Ocala Forest Midden 2 (Bullen and Bryant 1965: Table 4), a set of six dates from a recent salvage archaeology project on Lake Monroe (Johnson 2001: Table 9-1), one date from Live Oak Mound (Sassaman 2003: Table 4-1), one date from the Hontoon Dead Creek Mound (Randall and Sassaman 2005: Appendix A), and one previously unpublished date from Palmer-Taylor (Stewart 1983; Calvert et al. 1978: 281). Also included are two dates from the fiber-tempered pottery bearing levels at Groves= Orange Midden (Russo et al. 1992) and one date from a fiber-tempered context at Bluffton (Bullen 1972). Dates from freshwater shell are not included in this analysis. A total of 28 radiocarbon dates are from preceramic contexts in the upper St. Johns (n=1), the middle St. Johns (n=26), and northeast 77 Florida (n=1). Eight of the dates are from mortuary mound contexts, the remainder are from midden contexts. Five of these dates are from marine shell, the remainder are from charcoal, nutshell, or wood. A total of three dates from Orange period contexts, all within the middle St. Johns, are included for comparison and bracketing; one of these dates is from shell and the other two are from charcoal; all come from likely midden contexts (Table 2). Dates from the St. Marys region are not included, but would be contemporary with the Thornhill Lake period (Russo 1992). There has been no attempt at prejudice when selecting radiocarbon dates for this analysis. I have tried to use every date from clear preceramic contexts available in the published literature for the middle and upper St. Johns. All dates were entered into a spreadsheet and formatted for analysis and calibrated with OxCal,
version 3.10 (Ramsey 2005)3. Each date was calibrated as specified, and the resultant 1 and 2-sigma ranges copied to a spreadsheet. The samples were then seriated by the earliest date of the calibrated 2-sigma range of each sample. Results were then arranged as a chart and presented as probability spectrums in descending order (Figure 13). Dates were calibrated and then sorted; no dates were dropped and no specific arrangement was attempted.
Results Comparison between groupings produced by the radiocarbon seriation process and the material traits of the Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake periods shows a very strong correspondence. Mt. Taylor sites, characterized by flexed burials in strata dominated by shell, very few non-local materials, few artifacts found with burials, and an absence of Strombus gigas artifacts and shell beads date consistently to the 7300-5600 BP range. Sites with bannerstones, non-local stone beads, and shell beads are all found to date from 5600-4500 BP. Combined with extended burials, abundant grave accouterments with some burials, and burial strata dominated by sand, and we have strong contrasts between the two periods (Table 3). Orange period specifics are not directly researched in 3 For dates on wood/charcoal, the IntCal04 curve and a δ13C per mil value of -25 +/- 2 is used (Reimer et al. 2004). Marine shell is calibrated with the Marine04 curve (Hughen et al. 2004), using a ΔR correction factor of -5 +/- 20, and adjusted for isotopic fractionation by the addi- tion of 390 years prior to calibration (Walker et al. 1994: Table 2). Sample names correspond to those in the Sample Code column of Table 2. Radiocarbon samples analyzed from decades ago have relatively large associated errors, but for most samples, the error is on the order of 100 years or less. 78
Lab Sample 14C BP 14C Age SD d13C d13C SD Delta R Delta R SD Marine Carbon Description Material code code (CRA) years per mil years years years percentage UNKN GOM_OR_1 3159 65 -25 2 0 0 0 ZII_L2 CHARCOAL UNKN GOM_OR_2 3851 70 -25 2 0 0 0 ZII_L3 CHARCOAL RL-32 BLT_RL32 4050 110 0 0 -5 20 100 BUSYCON SHELL BETA_65865 GOM_7 4080 60 -25 2 0 0 0 ZII_L7 CHARCOAL UNKN_1 GOM_1 4115 75 -25 2 0 0 0 ZII_L5 CHARCOAL BETA_65864 GOM_8 4190 60 -25 2 0 0 0 ZII_L13 CHARCOAL UNKN_2 GOM_2 4400 125 -25 2 0 0 0 ZII_L8 CHARCOAL BETA_54622 TMKA_MD_6 4850 70 0 0 -5 20 100 MIDDEN_BASE_MD_6 COQUINA BETA_146752 LMOM_UA_L19 4640 50 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL BETA_146748 LMOM_UA_L9 4650 110 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL BETA_146751 LMOM_UA_L14 4710 40 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL I_563 OF_MID_2_33INBD 4725 180 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL BETA_146753 LMOM_UC_L9 4760 40 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL BETA_146756 LMOM_UC_L15 4760 40 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL BETA_65859 GOM_9 4810 70 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L10 CHARCOAL BETA_65860 GOM_10 4930 80 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L14 CHARCOAL BETA_65862 GOM_11 5040 60 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L16 CHARCOAL BETA_146749 LMOM_UA_L13 5080 80 -25 2 0 0 0 CHARCOAL BETA_59801 GOM_3 5100 70 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L11 CHARCOAL BETA_59802 GOM_4 5160 80 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L14 CHARCOAL M-1270 HRS_CRK_7 5420 200 0 0 -5 20 100 ABOVE MORTUARY ZONES BUSYCON SHELL M-1265 HRS_CRK_2 5320 200 -25 2 0 0 0 ABOVE MORTUARY ZONES CHARCOAL M-1264 HRS_CRK_1 5450 300 -25 2 0 0 0 BOTTOM OF MORTUARY A CHARCOAL M-1268 HRS_CRK_5 5450 180 -25 2 0 0 0 BOTTOM OF BURIAL 12 CHARCOAL BETA_59803 GOM_5 5580 80 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L19 CHARCOAL BETA_59804 GOM_6 5930 80 -25 2 0 0 0 ZIV_L21 CHARCOAL BETA_202281 HNTN_D_CRK_MD 6070 70 -25 2 0 0 0 AUGER_1 HICKORY_NUT UM-1155 PLMR_TYLR 6450 105 0 0 -5 20 100 ABOVE MORTUARY ZONES BUSYCON SHELL BETA_65863 GOM_12 6200 70 -25 2 0 0 0 ZV_L20 CHARCOAL BETA_65861 GOM_13 6210 60 -25 2 0 0 0 ZV_L22 CHARCOAL BETA_??? LIVE_OK_MD_2000 6260 50 -25 2 0 0 0 STRATUM_XIII CHARCOAL
Key: GOM= Groves’ Orange Midden BLT= Bluffton Midden TMKA_MD= Tomoka Mound OF= Ocala Forest Midden LMOM= Lake Monroe Outlet Midden HRS_CRK= Harris Creek HNTN_D_CRK= Hontoon Dead Creek Mound PLMR_TYLR= Palmer Taylor Mound LIVE_OK_MD= Live Oak Mound Table 2: Selected Radiocarbon Dates from Mt. Taylor, Thornhill Lake, and Orange Period Contexts
this work, but a date of 4500 BP for the ending of the Thornhill Lake period and the beginning of the manufacture of fiber-tempered pottery is supported by these data. A vertical line was visually plotted near the upper and lower 2-sigma point on the probability spectrum of the oldest and youngest date within each postulated group (Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake) and another line plotted at 2500 cal 14C yr BP based on Sassaman=s estimate (1993) for the approximate end of fiber-tempering as a pottery tradition in the southeast. Given a little leeway of placement of the lines to intersect even 100 year intervals, the time spans derived are: Mt. Taylor
Period: 7300-5600 cal 14C yr BP, Thornhill Lake: 5600-4500 cal 14C yr BP, and Orange: 4500-2500 cal 14C yr BP. Contexts assigned to the Mt. Taylor period based on this process include: Live Oak Mound, Palmer-Taylor Mound, Hontoon Dead Creek Mound, Harris Creek Mound, and the lower shell midden stratum at Groves= Orange Midden. One date from the Lake Monroe Outlet Midden falls 79 Mt. Taylor Thornhill Orange Period Lake Period Period GOM_OR_1 3159±65BP BLT_RL32 4050±110BP GOM_OR_2 3851±70BP
Orange Period GOM_7 4080±60BP GOM_1 4115±75BP GOM_8 4190±60BP GOM_2 4400±125BP TMKA_MD_6 4850±70BP LMOM_UA_L19 4640±50BP LMOM_UA_L9 4650±110BP LMOM_UA_L14 4710±40BP OF_MID_2_33INBD 4725±180BP Thornhill Lake Period LMOM_UC_L9 4760±40BP LMOM_UC_L15 4760±40BP GOM_9 4810±70BP GOM_10 4930±80BP GOM_11 5040±60BP LMOM_UA_L13 5080±80BP GOM_3 5100±70BP GOM_4 5160±80BP HRS_CRK_7 5420±200BP HRS_CRK_2 5320±200BP HRS_CRK_1 5450±300BP HRS_CRK_5 5450±180BP GOM_5 5580±80BP
Mt. Taylor Period Mt. Taylor GOM_6 5930±80BP HNTN_D_CRK_MD 6070±70BP PLMR_TYLR 6450±105BP GOM_12 6200±70BP GOM_13 6210±60BP LIVE_OK_MD_2000 6260±50BP
8000CalBP 7000CalBP 6000CalBP 5000CalBP 4000CalBP 3000CalBP 2000CalBP
Figure 13: Seriation of Radiocarbon Dates within this group, but this date is likely older than its recovered context. There are two later dates from levels of the same excavation unit that are inferior to the level from which this date originates (Table 2). Contexts assigned to the Thornhill Lake period include: Lake Monroe Outlet Midden, Ocala Forest Midden 2, Tomoka Mound 6 base, and the bulk of the upper shell midden stratum 80
Archaeological Flexed Extended Commingled Non-local Strombus gigas Shell Shell Dominate Sand Dominate Premound White Sand Period Burial Burial Human Bone Lapidary Items artifacts Beads Burial Strata Burial Strata Fire Deposits
Mount Taylor PR P A A A P A P P Thornhill Lake RP A(?) P P P A P P P A=Absent P=Present R=Rare
Table 3: Comparisons between Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake Periods at Groves= Orange Midden. Orange period contexts include: the uppermost undisturbed level at Groves= Orange Midden and the fiber-tempered pottery strata of Bluffton.
Di s c u ss i o n a n d Co n c l u s i o n s This analysis has found that there is a strong correlation between particular material features of the late preceramic in the St. Johns region and calibrated radiocarbon dates. Distinctions between preceramic sites that have all previously been grouped into the Mt. Taylor period has allowed for a greater temporal discrimination in the later preceramic, spurring the creation of a new archaeological period, the Thornhill Lake period, and restriction of the Mt. Taylor period in time and content. There is direct implication from this analysis for Middle-Late Archaic preceramic contexts throughout the Eastern Woodlands. Evidence from the St. Johns region in Florida indicates that the construction of burial mounds likely predates the participation of St. Johns people in intra- regional exchange networks, including non-local stone artifacts and marine shell from southeast Florida, by over 1500 years. For example, comparison with the Hill Cottage Midden at the Palmer site near Sarasota Bay on the west coast of Florida (Bullen 1972) finds parallel trends, and further investigation would likely show that this trajectory is relatively common. Populations are also expanding into coastal ecological niches during the Thornhill Lake period (Russo 1992). Calibration and analysis of radiocarbon dates and comparison with artifact assemblages and mortuary practices in other areas of the southeastern United States is expected to show similar trends. At the same time, there are important continuities between Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake period practices. Many Mt. Taylor midden sites continued to be occupied during the Thornhill Lake 81 period, with little indication of dramatic shifts in subsistence strategies or toolkits. Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake mortuary mounds are both typically built on extant aceramic middens, and the mounds share specific structural attributes. For at least one site considered here, Orange Mound, there are Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake period mortuary strata. Persistence of a basic pattern is the essence of Goggin=s tradition concept, and such continuity is found between these two periods. The substantial peat layer at Groves= Orange Midden separating the Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake deposits could be an indicator of a climatic event that dates to the transition. McGee and Wheeler (1994) point out that this peat layer is indicative of a high water period in Lake Monroe. Climatic data for the southeastern region are discussed in detail by Anderson, Russo, and Sassaman (2007), and deserve further attention in Florida. In this chapter I have attempted to provide a greater resolution to Mt. Taylor as an archaeological construct. Using material traits and radiocarbon dates, Mt. Taylor is restricted to the time span of 7300-5600 BP, and argued to be characterized in part by flexed burial and a general absence of grave furniture and non-local artifacts. Based on the evidence given, the tradition of mortuary monuments in the St. Johns region predates the appearance of non-local materials, differential burial treatments, and adornments, artifacts and traits that would be indicative of rank and hierarchy, by well over a millennium. Findings presented here should encourage us to reassess our assumptions regarding mound building, hierarchy, and power relationships (Saunders 2004). Perhaps, respect of and obligation to ancestors is Aenough@ to encourage mound building (Gibson 2004). 82 Ch a p t e r 6: En v i r o n m e n t a n d Su b s i s t e n c e Give a man a fish. . . Anonymous
This section reviews the general ecological conditions during the mid-Holocene in the upper St. Johns basin and provides a rough outline of the subsistence economy during the Mt. Taylor period (7300-5600 cal 14C yr BP). During this period, the low relief of the Florida peninsula and post-Pleistocene sea-level rise combine in a progressively drowned landscape. Highly productive local environments, composed of a mosaic of aquatic and terrestrial resources, were established and matured. Exploitative strategies focused on fishing, gathering, and hunting. Bountiful natural resources resistant to over-exploitation encouraged a reduction in mobility. Persistent usage of certain locales over generations resulted in the accumulations of large shell middens. Mortuary monuments were constructed, some of the first such structures in the southeastern United States.
Ge n e r a l Ch a r a c t e r i s t i c s Three factors most shape the environment of peninsular Florida and the St. Johns basin: water, youth, and very low relief. The St. Johns is a slow-moving, northward flowing river, one of the few major rivers in North America to do so. The river heads near Blue Cypress Lake west of Vero Beach and flows generally northward for approximately 275 miles (443 km) to the mouth near Jacksonville (Figure 1). An extremely low-gradient characterizes the entire valley, with only ca. 15 feet (4.6 m) of drop for the entire river length, or ca. .005 feet (15 mm) per mile. The lower (northern) portions of the river are daily affected by tides, and tidal influences can be felt as far as the upper St. Johns (Cooke 1945; Brown et al. 1962; White 1970).
Geology In the upper St. Johns basin, most surface is later-Pleistocene to Holocene in age, with earlier geological units generally only exposed in sinkholes or springs, neither of which is commonly exposed surficialy in the region, though they are likely buried (Kindenger et al. 2000). Underlying Eocene limestones form most of the Floridian aquifer. Miocene-Pliocene deposits overlay these limestones, forming part of the Floridian aquifer and creating an aquiclude that separates the 83 nonartesian aquifer (Bermes et al. 1963). Surface geology is primarily siliciclastic sediments, derived from Appalachian sources, deposited and altered by repeated sea-level high and low stands (Scott 2001: 1). Complexes of late Pleistocene and Holocene sands, muds, and organics form the basin (Scott 2001), with likely buried Hawthorne Formation impermeables affecting expressions of surface water (Kindenger et al. 2000). Stone suitable for either flaking or grinding is mostly absent throughout the upper St. Johns. Sources for flaked stone artifacts are almost always cherts from north-central Florida or cherts and silicified corals from Tampa area (Purdy 1981). Major terraces formed during higher sea-levels border the Eastern Valley physiographic feature that forms the upper St. Johns. Interpretations (Miller 1998; Cooke 1945: 301) of the origin of the broad, low valley that the St. Johns flows through in this area are primarily that the valley represents a relic lagoon formed during Pamlico (interglaical recession in Wisconsin glacial), but White (1970) gives an alternate origin. The general model is that during a late Pleistocene sea- level high stand, a large coastal lagoon, similar to the present Indian River lagoon, formed between what is today the Osceola Plain and the Atlantic Coastal Ridge. Lowered sea-levels stranded this lagoon, while increasing precipitation and again rising sea-levels eventually created sufficient volume to flow. White (1970) points out that this section of the St. Johns is formed of connected lakes, and may have a more complex formational history. An additional terrace, the Silver Bluff, is found coastward of the upper St. Johns and near the present coast. The age of this terrace could be very young, almost certainly post-Pleistocene in origin, and possibly as recent as 6000-7000 years ago. This scarp would represent an additional sea-level high stand (Cooke 1945; Brown et al. 1962). Recent sea-level research, discussed shortly, supports the thesis of several low violence Holocene sea-level high stands. Formation of post-Pleistocene terraces and barrier islands on the nearby Atlantic coast may better explain the seeming abrupt emergence of mid-Holocene settlement (Brech 2004).
Soils Present soils in the upper St. Johns are dominantly mucks and sands, with little area considered suitable for agriculture without drainage. Several small attempts at cultivation are evident in the 84 region, mainly orange orchards, but large-scale agriculture has not been commonly practiced. Extensive peat deposits are present from the area near Lake Wilmington and southward, with localized peats found in the remainder of the basin, including near the archaeological sites under consideration and in ponds and lakes. The peats are mostly autochthonous, formed due to eutrophication in lowmoor environments, and some deposits are closer to muck than peat in character (Davis 1946). Peat/muck deposits at Groves= Orange Midden and Palmer-Taylor indicate a high-level stand postdating the Mt. Taylor period (Aten 1999; Rouse 1951). These peats are highly informative regarding past ecological and climatic conditions at a local level.
Sea-levels The importance of sea-level changes in the St. Johns basin has been understood by archaeologists since the work of C. B. Moore, and formally discussed by Goggin (1948b) and Rouse (1951). There are a multitude of sea-level reconstructions at global and regional scales with Holocene data from which curves and trends are derived. Specifics of each reconstruction can be contradictory with others, but general trends are usually similar. Balsillie and Donoghue (2004) have analyzed and summarized sea-level curves pertinent to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. The researchers assembled the relevant sea-level information, and then attempted to eliminate spurious data points, resulting in 341 radiocarbon dated sea-level indicators dating from ca. 18,000 years BP to present. A seven-point floating average was established and a curve produced from this statistic. The sea- level data are presented using uncalibrated and calibrated dates. The calibrated data are used for comparison in this dissertation. Particular attention was paid by Balsillie and Donoghue to the post- 6000 years BP period, i.e., the mid- to late-Holocene. Review of the sea-level curve based on the onshore samples demonstrates a gradually aggrading water level, reaching modern levels at approximately 5800 cal 14C yr BP (Figure 14). This gradual rising of the sea-level is generally congruent with current models of mid- Holocene conditions (Miller 1992, 1998), though earlier than thought, with near-modern conditions appearing nearly contemporary with the initiation of shell heap construction and the Mt. Taylor period. Additional research supports a mid-Holocene sea-level rise (Faught 2002). However, the 85 Balsillie and Donoghue curve shows the sea-level at the beginning of the Mt. Taylor period much lower than traditional reconstructions, as much as 7 meters below modern mean sea-level. Without more regionally specific data, it is difficult to be sure of the local conditions in the upper St. Johns at this time. Water levels have at least gotten to the point where local environments can support shellfish populations, and likely did reach a critical point in the St. Johns valley at approximately 7300 cal 14C yr BP to support more intensive occupation (Miller 1992). But at 7 meters below modern levels, water would have been much more rare and likely restricted to channels. Much more local data is needed to understand changing conditions in the upper St. Johns.
Mt. Taylor Thornhill Lake # 9EARS "0
!BSOLUTE 9EARS "0
Tanner, Stapor, et al. - St. Vincent Isl. Morton et al. (2000) Blum et al. (2002) Stapor and Stone (2004) 7-Pt Floating Average McFarlan (1961) Fairbridge (1961, 1974) Behrens (1966) Schnable and Goodell (1968) Figure 14: Holocene Sea Levels (modified from Balsillie and Donoghue 2004)
According to the Balsillie and Donoghue curve, there is a high stand at approximately 5600 rcypb (2004: Figure 7), with sea-levels ca. 1.5 m higher than present. This high stand is congruent with the proposed ending date for the Mt. Taylor period, and likely has significance for the 86 archaeological time frame under consideration here. Additional evidence for this high-stand is present at Groves= Orange Midden, where a layer of peat ca. 25-35 cm thick separates a lower shell midden stratum dated to the Mt. Taylor period from an upper shell midden stratum (McGee and Wheeler 1994), dated to the Thornhill Lake period by this author. McGee and Wheeler however associate this peat with a lowered sea-level (1994: 340). An additional period of higher sea- levels at approximately 4200 cal 14C yr BP may represent the mucks found at Palmer-Taylor that separates the Preceramic-Orange deposits from later St. Johns deposits (Rouse 1951). At present, sea-level reconstructions can at best provide directions for research in the upper St. Johns. The lack of local specifics and equivocal correlations creates a situation where possible correlations between cultural shifts and stabilities can be forwarded, but any assertions of certainty should be treated with suspicion. Despite a general scheme of climatic stability during the mid-Holocene (Miller 1998), climatic variability may be quite high (Viau et al. 2006). An organized program of coring would go far in helping to elucidate climatic details of the mid-Holocene. Rouse notes that the mucks found in off-mound units at the Palmer-Taylor mound dated to after the Preceramic and succeeding Orange periods (1951). Rouse dates the Preceramic and Orange periods to a geological event termed the Melbourne-Van Valkenburg interval. In Rouse=s scheme, this is a period of sea level regression. Rising sea levels between the Orange and St Johns II/Malabar II periods, encompassing the time between ca. 500 B.C. and A.D. 500, created these mucks. St Johns II/Malabar II material above the muck is taken to indicate this climatological event. The scheme used by Rouse does not enjoy common currency today, but the trend of rising sea levels following the Late Archaic is borne out by contemporary evidence (Little 2003; Balsillie and Donoghue 2004). An archaeological survey of the Tosohatchee State Preserve south of Palmer- Taylor on the west bank of the St. Johns River located no Archaic sites or St Johns II sites, but several small St. Johns I mounds were located. Nearly all of the mounds tested during this survey and other mounds mapped by local informants, totaling ca. 44 sites, were located on the 4.5 meter contour, and those with diagnostic materials present all had St. Johns I components. No sites were found below this line, but the survey was not systematic (Stewart 1985). This is in contrast to other 87 time periods, where most sites are found in the St. Johns basin and upland usage is transitory at most.
Pollen The nearest site from which a pollen core has been obtained and analyzed is the mortuary pond at the Windover site (Holloway 2002). This site is in the upper St. Johns drainage, 13.6 km southeast of the Orange Mound; the mortuary component of the site predates the Mt. Taylor. Two radiocarbon samples from the uppermost peat zone (Zone 1: 0-89 cm) were analyzed, returning stratigraphically valid date ranges (Doran 2002b: Table 3.1). The older of the two dates (Beta- 13910) is approximately 40 cm below the younger date (Beta-10763), and returns a range of 7170- 6690 cal 14C yr BP at the 2-sigma range, contemporary with the early Mt. Taylor period (Chapter 5). The upper date is calibrated (2-sigma) to 5730-5310 cal 14C yr BP (Table 1), corresponding with the Thornhill Lake period. Review of the arboreal pollen diagram from Windover shows a continuing presence of Pinus and Quercus from the previous depositional episode, with both species showing a marked decline at approximately the 5800-5600 mark, followed by a rapid rebound. This disappearance corresponds to the sea-level high stand described above. A rapid but short-lived rise in sea-level would create permanent standing water in this near-coastal region, preventing the growth of these trees in much of the upper St. Johns east of Osceola Ridge except for scattered high spots. Salix is the one of the few arboreal species with any marked change from earlier deposits, showing a rapid decline at the Mt. Taylor period interface (Figure 15). There are starker contrasts between non-arboreal pollens found in Zone 2, dating to ca. 9500- 7300 cal 14C yr BP and Zone 1, contemporary with Mt. Taylor (Figure 16). There is a tremendous decline in Chenopodiacae/Amaranthaceae pollen, with a corresponding increase in Poaceae and Asteraceae pollens, but this happens slightly later than the initiation of peat formation in Zone 1. Holloway interprets the pollen diagram as perhaps showing salt flats during the deposition of Zone 2, with a return of more arboreal conditions in Zone 1. This is interpreted as a return to cooler and moister conditions (2002: 223-224), and is similar to the trends from the Mud Lake pollen core in 88
Figure 15: Windover Aboreal Pollen
Figure 16: Windover Non-aboreal Pollen 89 central Florida (Watts 1969). The non-arboreal pollen can also be interpreted as a shifting away from salty to freshwater conditions, associated with maturation of coastal features and a higher non-artesian water table due to rising sea-level.
Temperature The general opinion is that climatic conditions became cooler and drier at approximately 7000 rcyb (Holloway 2002; Miller 1998). A recent study by Viau et al. (2006) provides greater detail to temperature fluctuations in North America during the Holocene. This study utilized 752 fossil pollen records that included over 2500 radiocarbon dates. Using 89 taxa and 4590 modern pollen records, the authors created estimates of climatic conditions using the Modern Analogue Technique (Viau et al. 2006: 1-2) for the past 14,000 years, with particular emphasis on the past 10,000 years. The series was interpolated to 100 year intervals using a simple linear interpolation technique and average temperatures found for each interval. Comparison with other datasets (GISP2 ice core, several δ18 records, and others) showed good coherence, encouraging confidence in the reconstruction. This is a continental reconstruction. The authors point out several temperature spikes and trends, including the previously observed high variability during the last 3000 years and, a greater climatic oscillation during the period from 8000-5000 cal 14C yr BP (Hypsithermal) than previously suspected (Viau et al. 2006). There are several high temperature peaks during this period, between which there are smoother troughs of lower temperatures (Figure 17). Three peaks are of relevance to this dissertation. A high temperature spike at ca. 7200 cal 14C yr BP corresponds closely with the beginning of the Mt. Taylor period (7300 cal 14C yr BP). This peak is followed by a rapid drop in temperature, congruent with the pollen data discussed above. At ca. 5800 cal 14C yr BP, there is another high temperature spike, followed again by rapid cooling. The ending of the Mt. Taylor period and the beginning of the Thornhill Lake period (Chapter X) is dated at 5600 cal 14C yr BP. At ca. 4500 cal 14C yr BP, there is an additional temperature spike. This is the date given for the termination of the Thornhill Lake period and the initiation of fiber-tempered ceramics. Though peripheral to this dissertation, there is another temperature peak and rapid cooling at ca. 3100 cal 90 14C yr BP, corresponding closely with the beginning of major mound
Poverty Point? construction at Poverty Orange Point (Gibson 1997). It Thornhill Lake should be emphasized that these peaks fall near the Mt. Taylor inception/decline of the archaeological periods, but do not necessarily characterize the bulk Figure 17: Mean July Temperature Anomaly of the Past 10,000 cal. yr. BP. of time for the periods, which for all is greater than a millennium. A relative stability within the periods is most characteristic of the data, but climatic instability seems to be the rule through most of the Holocene.
Su bs i s t e n c e Russo et al. (1992) have provided a thorough critique and realignment of Archaic subsistence research in the St. Johns, illustrating how the speculations of nineteenth century scholars continue to inform general evolutionary schemes for the region. Brinton, Wyman, and Moore, the most important of the early workers, cast the preceramic in terms of the faunal content of the shell heaps. For Brinton, the St. Johns people were ichtyophagous, i.e., fisheaters, near the bottom of Morgan=s evolutionary scale (Brinton 1872, cited in Russo et al. 1992: 96). Wyman provides what must be one of the earliest tabulations of faunal remains from an archaeological site in Florida (1868), and discusses the contribution of terrestrial and aquatic fauna to the diet. He felt that shellfish were the major element of the diet for the St. Johns inhabitants, an opinion that would be generally accepted for the next century (Goggin 1952; Rouse 1951). 91 Stephen Cumbaa forwarded the first real challenge to this view in 1976. Using somewhat less than ideal methods, Cumbaa deduced that terrestrial mammals provided a greater contribution to the diet than thought. He also arrived at a contribution of plants to the Archaic diet from thin-air, subtracting more from the contribution of aquatic resources. Cumbaa=s conclusions fit in well with the generalized settlement model of seasonal migration between the central Florida highlands, the river basins, and the coast. As clearly demonstrated by Russo et al. (1992), Cumbaa put the hunter and the gatherer into the St. Johns Archaic, at the expense of the fisher. Applying more appropriate quantitative analyses and integrating botanical remains into their assessment, Russo and colleagues (1992) argued that terrestrial mammals formed a much smaller fraction of the diet than previously thought. Aquatic animals, shellfish, fish, and reptiles, were most represented in the faunal assemblage by meat weight based on multiple methodologies. The contribution of plants to the diet is not quantified, but this is one of the first reports of the variety of flora exploited during the Archaic (see also Newsom 1985). Further work at Groves= Orange Midden provided more substantial data sets specifically concerned with the Mt. Taylor and Thornhill Lake periods. Wheeler and McGee (1994b), using the Russo model of St. Johns subsistence, analyzed multiple column samples from the submerged midden using the same basic methodology. The Groves= Orange Midden data indicate that aquatic animals provided the vast majority of the meat weight, greater than 85% for all samples. Aquatic animals, including fish, shellfish, and turtles, provided the greatest amount to the diet, while terrestrial mammals are rare and provide only a small portion of the meat (Wheeler and McGee 1994b: Tables 6-10). Lee Newsom conducted the archaeobotancial analyses for Groves= Orange Midden (Russo et al. 1992; Newsom 1994). A broad variety of plant remains were recovered, most of which were economically useful. Among the important species encountered are Cucurbitaceae pepo and bottle gourds seeds, both found in relative abundance throughout the excavation levels. The seeds do not differ greatly from wild specimens, so are not thought to be domesticated varieties, but may still indicate encouragement of their growth. Starchy seed plants, including amaranth and 92 chenopodium, may also be indicators of incipient horticulture. (Newsom 1994). Though the data are more limited, research in the upper St. Johns basin shows a somewhat different strategy than in the middle basin. Russo (1985) analyzed faunal samples from a number of sites encountered during archaeological survey of the upper St. Johns, including eleven stratified midden sites with preceramic deposits (75-106). Great attention and care is given to the bias of screen size and its effect on representativeness of faunal samples. Excavations at the Gauthier site lead by Brenda Sigler-Eisenberg and earlier work by Elizabeth Wing and others showed that finer mesh gauge could easily treble or quadruple the fish remains recovered during analysis. Not all sites discovered during survey could have all the soils screened through fine mesh (1.6 mm), but all soils were screened through large (6.35 mm) mesh and a small sample retained from each 10 cm level of midden material throughout the survey for laboratory processing. Experiments with finer mesh screens were used to provide some assessment of the recovery bias. Fine mesh screens trebled the individual fish identified, while not substantially increasing the amount of terrestrial fauna recovered, mainly commensal species. Russo estimates that only 34 percent of the faunal remains are recovered with 6.35 mm mesh screens. This level of recovery consistently and drastically underestimates the contribution of fish to the dietary spectrum (see also Marquardt 1996; Reitz and Wing 1999). Overall, the upper St. Johns midden sites show little emphasis on terrestrial mammals or shellfish. At the eleven sites that are believed to have preceramic components, none had shellfish remains in the preceramic layers. The one faunal class thought to be most representative of the Middle Archaic is missing from the non-mound archaeological sites. Shellfish remains begin to appear in the middens with the Orange period (bivalves), and continued throughout later ceramic periods, but are not of high frequency in most of the sites found during survey, less than 40 percent of ceramic sites have shellfish, and only 10 percent of the Orange/Preceramic sites have shellfish remains, while fish remains are consistently found. There are differences between the fish sizes exploited during the different periods, smaller fish from shallow water environments dominate the earliest assemblages, while later periods have larger fish from deeper waters (Russo 1985). Local 93 environments in the upper St. Johns may not have been conducive to shellfish growth. At the mortuary monuments of focus in this dissertation however, it appears that there are middens with shell underlying the monuments and a substantial midden was present at Persimmon Mound. All these monuments are at the northern or lower end of upper St. Johns, and the ancillary middens may indicate different local conditions during the Mt. Taylor period, but the scale of preceramic middens never seems to have approached those found in the middle St. Johns basin. Fish and turtle are likely the dominate protein and calorie source during the mid-Holocene, with lesser contributions from other aquatic and limited terrestrial sources. Excavations at Groves= Orange Midden recovered a sizeable sample of wood, bone, and shell artifacts related to fishing and processing. Based on this assemblage, fish harvesting wasan intensive activity. Nets were one strategy employed, reflected in the recovery of fids for net- weaving and shell net gauges (Wheeler and McGee 1994a). There is not a large sample of net gauges, but those recovered indicate small-mesh screens, ca. 6 cm maximum orifice (Wheeler and McGee 1994a: Fig. 17). Finer mesh fishing screens are indicative of a generalized, high- recovery strategy, with most fish and ancillary aquatic fauna recoverable. (Brown and Vierra 1983). Milanich and Fairbanks (1980: 151) suggest that bone points and awls may have been used in shellfish processing, but this idea has not been tested. Transportation along waterways was facilitated by canoe, for which we have abundant evidence. Low water levels in 2000 exposed organic artifacts throughout Florida, including at Newnans Lake near Gainesville where over 100 canoes and fragments were exposed. Of 55 studied, 41 dated to the Late Archaic (ca. 5500-2300 14C yr BP), contemporary with the Thornhill Lake and Orange periods (Wheeler et al. 2003). Further specific research is needed to determine the contribution of any particular resource to the Mt. Taylor period people=s diet but a picture is emerging of a primary reliance on aquatic fauna as a protein and caloric source with an adjunct reliance on gathered plant foods, terrestrial mammals, and fowl. The composite assemblage of plants and animals supports a thesis of limited transhumance (Russo et al. 1992: 105-106), in contrast to earlier models of high mobility and 94 drifting between sustained upland hunting and seasonal visits to riverine, slackwater, or coastal environments. A model of sedentism is only weakly tested at present, but the majority of data support a Acollector@ settlement system (Binford 1980). Marine fishing has attracted substantial archaeological attention, including considering marine resources as an economic substrate of complex social organizations (e.g., Mosley 1975; Martinez 1979; Yesner 1980; Acheson 1981; Jones 1991; Arnold 1992; Erlandson et al. 1998; Rick et al. 2005; Braje and Erlandson 2007), while freshwater fishing has seen little research (Plew 1996; but see Marquardt 1985; Beckerman 1994). Shell middens are a common feature of all fisher-people, but these middens are not the defining characteristic of the people, only material evidence of a particular adaptation. Most non-marine fish archaeological research in North America has been along the Northwest Coast interior rivers where populations focused seasonally on anadromous species (e.g. O=Leary 1992, 1996; Hayden 1992), with small attention given to the economic importance of vertebrate fish in interior aquatic adaptions in eastern North America (but see Limp and Reidhead 1979; Garson 1980; Brown and Vierra 1983; Price and Brown 1985; Claassen 1991; Erlandson 2001). Paradoxically, sites of freshwater fishing people are in great abundance and have been excavated since the beginning of scientific archaeology in the Americas. Shell-bearing sites, primarily referencing the classic freshwater shell midden, have been and are still a favorite subject of excavation, but in the Eastern Woodlands, are most always conceptualized as the remains of shellfishing people who occasionally fish (Waselkov 1982; Claassen 1991; Crothers 2004), rarely as the remains of fishing people who harvest shellfish as a component of a wide-spectrum aquatically focused strategy (but see Russo 1985; Russo et al. 1992; Marquardt 1985; Milner 1998; Blitz and Mann 2000; Marquardt and Watson 2005). The are several elements that help explain this hesitancy to recognize shell-bearing sites as possible components of a freshwater piscatorial economy; a few are discussed in this dissertation. Many of these issues apply to marine and nearshore shell-bearing sites, but most of these biases have been overcome, due largely to the recognition that marine fisher-hunter-gatherer complexity existed and that the Northwest Coast 95 was not a singular anomaly (Widmer 1988; Arnold 1992, 1993; Marquardt 1992).
Di s c u ss i o n This section is intended to provide an environmental context for the appearance, persistence, and eventual transformation of Mt. Taylor material culture and society. Explicitly, I do not adhere to a perspective that treats environment as explanatory or deterministic. However, I do take a perspective that similar conditions give rise to similar adaptions (Cushing 2005), so material culture will tend to change with alterations in the local environment. Variability in climatic conditions may also encourage realignment of intra- and inter-societal relations. People actively respond to
dramatic climate change and responses may include restructuring relations of material, power, and habitus. Environment, static or dynamic, is always correlative with society. Causality must be demonstrated, not assumed. A general characterization of the environmental conditions at the inception of and during the Mt. Taylor period can be forwarded as follows: A rapid temperature rise, followed by rapid cooling, marks the beginning of the period. There appears to be a drastic shift in the local flora scheme, with a short spike in Cheno-ams followed by a rapid decline in the same genera and a coeval increase in Poaceae and Asteraceae. Sea-levels aggraded slowly throughout the Mt. Taylor period, reaching modern mean level by ca. 5800-6000 cal 14C yr BP. During the Mt. Taylor period, temperatures continued to oscillate, culminating in another peak at ca. 5800 cal 14C yr BP, slightly before the proposed ending date for the Mt. Taylor period. Plant life shows some variation, but remains generally consistent until ca. 5600 cal 14C yr BP, when there is a short by punctated reduction in oak and pine pollens. Sea-levels remained fairly constant until ca. 5500 cal 14C yr BP, when then begin to rise again, peaking at ca. 5300 cal 14C yr BP and then regrading for the next 500 years. Subsistence strategies emphasized aquatic fauna, dominantly freshwater fish. Shellfish and terrestrial fauna supplemented fish as protein sources. The contribution of plants is less researched, but a wide variety of species were exploited for dietary and practical needs. Overall, indications 96 are that a rich local environment emerged during the mid-Holocene and was successfully exploited. The material consequence of these conditions and subsistence practices is the large shell middens that help to define the Mt. Taylor period. 97 Ch a p t e r 7: Mi d d e n a n d Mo n u m e n t One man’s garbage. . . Anonymous
The chapter is primarily a preface to the following two which are intended to accent some material distinctions between Mt. Taylor midden deposits and Mt. Taylor mortuary monument deposits. Two basic tasks are being undertaken in this dissertation: 1) Demonstrating the material and structural distinctions between Mt. Taylor middens and monuments, and 2) Constructing ritual- architectural reception histories of Mt. Taylor mortuary architecture. Both rely on stratigraphy in their explication. As a first undertaking, there is a review of the stratigraphic record from both types of deposits. Focus is on Mt. Taylor burial monuments, and they are first reviewed. Utilizing Harris matrices, stratigraphic reconstructions are presented that demonstrate building sequences and techniques and modes of human interment. The next chapter is devoted to a brief characterization of Mt. Taylor middens. There is an emphasis on contrasts between midden deposits and the previously described monuments. In attempting the task of hermeneutical engagement, there is a demand to make human experience the tempo of investigation. Towards that goal, two stratigraphic unit concepts are introduced as heuristic devices in this chapter: persistent surface and transitory surface. These concepts are in reference to the tempo of deposition and are often recognized archaeologically as interfaces (see Gibson 2006). Shell deposits are frequently cast solely as gradual accruement, but some shell deposits owe their origin to intensive short-term activity (Stein et al. 2003). A distinction between the two is needed to engage a hermeneutical method to monumentality and concurrently aid conceptualization of the stratigraphic distinctions made above.
Pe r s i s t e n t a n d Tr a n s i t o r y Su r f a c e s Shell sites are often essentialized as homogenous features, obscuring diversity within deposits, even when the diversity is known to be intentional:
“These deposits of shells are sometimes spoken of as mounds, but they are rarely to be considered as works of art in the sense that their conformation is the result of design. The accumulating refuse generally increased the habitability of the sites, and 98 distribution of the shells was no doubt in cases intelligently supervised with this end in view. It further appears that actual building sometimes took place, that shape was modified and height was increased for domiciliary and defensive purposes, and when the sites became places of sepulture the shells were utilized in building mounds. It is not, however, as works of art that these deposits are to be considered in this place ‑their use as constructions being a secondary consideration ‑but as accumulations of refuse inclosing in their mass reliable records of the food supply, the arts and industries, and, in a measure, the habits and customs of the people” (Holmes 1907). Making a distinction between two general kinds of activities, refuse accumulation and intentional building, takes us beyond the limits imposed on conceptualizing shell sites as fossils of secularity. A persistent surface is any activity surface exposed for an extended period of time; a surface that is not normally intentionally buried following activity. There may or may not be purpose in leaving the surface exposed. Most persistent surfaces are simply incidentally so. There is no intent to leave most of a village landscape as a surface, but there is not intent to cover it. Some persistent surfaces are intentionally kept so. An earthen house floor would be a persistent surface during its use life, despite daily accumulating debris and artifacts and regular cleaning. A ceremonial plaza may be maintained and cleaned continually to prevent surface accretions. Persistent surfaces are recognizable archaeologically by the presence of weathered surfaces, often an accumulation of debris associated with activity on the surface, and usually, horizontally extensive interfaces. In lithostratigraphic terminology, an unconformity would be a persistent surface (Gibson 2006; Aten 1999). Transitory surfaces are those activity surfaces that are meant to be covered/buried, surfaces not meant to be left exposed for extended periods of time. In contrast to persistent surfaces, with transitory surfaces there is brevity of time involved in their exposure. Most transitory surfaces are intentionally so, and a persistent surface can host a transitory surface. A house burned after the death of the owner and then covered with a mantle of earth would represent a transitory surface surmounted by a persistent surface, as would the purificatory burning of an existing mound surface. Other examples of transitory surfaces would be the intermediate surfaces during brief 99 halts of mound construction, the area of a funeral pyre that is then buried, or a mound summit on which mortuary remains are displayed prior to encapsulation with soil. Transitory surfaces do not become persistent surfaces except by accident or interruption. Importantly, there can be an inverse relationship to the thickness and depth of archaeological deposits and the total amount of time involved (Stein et al. 2003). A substantive mound stratum may be mainly burial of transitory surfaces and in total represent very little elapsed time, perhaps on the order of weeks or months. Conversely, a persistent surface could represent years, decades, or even centuries of time, but be represented by very little material accumulation. Confusion between transitory and persistent surfaces is the greatest impediment to understanding the mechanics of construction in shell mounds, because in contrast to middens, the thickest deposits accreted very quickly, sometimes within days or weeks, while some stratigraphic interfaces, with very little vertical representation, represent centuries of accumulation. Mt. Taylor monuments are conceptualized as a combination of transitory and persistent surfaces. A generalized sequence of monument construction begins with an extant midden (a persistent surface). A large fire is built atop this midden (a transitory surface). Secondary burials are piled atop the fire/charcoal (a transitory surface). After the bones are piled, a mound mantle is deposited rapidly, and then that surface is left persistently exposed. Into this surface, burial pits were excavated and people placed, often with ancillary feasting and activity (transitory surfaces). The initial making of the monument is a brief episode, but once made, the monument is a constant and central feature of everyday life. Mt. Taylor middens are conceptualized as primarily persistent surfaces. Accumulation is gradual, incremental, and mostly undirected. Large crescentic middens are formed by a few households that regularly relocate short distances. Generations of repeated usage contribute to a mounting pile of detritus. The shell underfoot is evidence of community success and deep ties to place. Massive middens are incidental but significant persistent features. With these devices, data are now presented that illustrate distinctions between monuments and 100 middens. The data are extensive, but that is a necessary consequence of providing a radically different model for shell heaps than usually provided and in exploring behavior at the level of the individual and the society. 101 Ch a p t e r 8: Si t e De s c r i p t i o n s “There is some stratification in the deposits but it apparently has little cultural significance.” (Goggin 1952: 41)
In t r o d u c t i o n This chapter reviews the archaeological stratigraphy at five Mt. Taylor shell heaps where human remains have been excavated. Archaeological data are presented detailing the depositional history of the shell heaps, focusing on the mounded areas where human skeletal remains are found. By showing the regularity and repetition of specific attributes of stratigraphy at multiple sites, it is argued that the deposits were intentionally built- that these Mt. Taylor shell mounds are mortuary monuments and sacred architecture, constructed atop and coeval with extant middens and but one component of village life. The focus is on stratigraphic data in this synthesis, utilizing graphic and textual descriptions of the stratigraphic units encountered to derive sections. Stratigraphy is recorded by all investigators of the sites reviewed, in terms that allow comparisons. The descriptions themselves vary widely; none of the projects (excepting Harris Creek) used any type of standardized system of recording the site matrix. I have however strived to use the descriptions of the original recorders. When altered, it is a change for brevity, not content. Harris Creek will serve as the archetype site since it is the most completely reported Mt. Taylor mortuary mound (Jahn and Bullen 1978; Aten 1999). The other four sites, the Palmer-Taylor Mound, the Orange Mound, the Persimmon Mound, and Persimmon Mound II, are located in the lower half of the upper St. Johns river basin. Selection of these sites was based on an extensive review of all the archaeological reports obtainable for the upper St. Johns. These four sites were the only examples of burial loci in the upper St. Johns that could be certainly attributed to the Mt.
Taylor period.1 Each of these sites was excavated by C. B. Moore in the late 19th century, and
1 Many more mounds in the region are assigned to the Mt. Taylor period by Wheeler et al. (2000), but I was unable to verify any but these four. There is a possibility of Mt. Taylor period interments at Indian Fields, Duda Ranch, and Persimmon Mount (distinct from Persimmon Mound), but the available information is too limited to be certain. 102 all but one are previously reported and recognized as dating to the Mt. Taylor period (Mitchem 1999). In the upper St. Johns, the Palmer-Taylor Mound is the only site discussed to have experienced excavation in the last hundred years. One small project conducted immediately prior to World War II is previously reported. There are additionally two archaeological field schools that have not been generally reported prior to this dissertation. The Orange Mound is famous in its own right, but no professional work has occurred since Moore. Orange Mound is located on the west side of the St. Johns, across from the outlet of Salt Creek. Persimmon Mound may have been visited by Wyman. This site is located on the east bank of the St. Johns, just below the outlet of Salt Creek and directly north of Orange. Persimmon II, a small shell heap just west of Persimmon Mound, has not been previously reported anywhere but in Moore=s field notes. Eight stratigraphic attributes are compared between the five localities. The attributes compared are: 1) Areally extensive and continuous strata, 2) Human bone entombed by those strata, 3) Grave pits that are dug into those strata, 4) Group/community burial, 5) Associations of fire and mortuary contexts, 6) Associations of food and mortuary contexts, 7) Associations of white sand and mortuary contexts, and, 8)An extreme sparsity of utilitarian artifacts. Not all of these are universal to every site, but most are found in the five sites reviewed.
Me t h o d o l o g y Referencing sections of the upper St. Johns shell heaps, a modified Harris matrix system is used to analyze stratigraphic data and provide a means of reconstructing depositional structure. A full discussion of the background and theory of Harris matrices can be found in Harris (1979, 1997). Harris matrices are two-dimensional representations of stratigraphic units, used for sorting and correlating the units by assigning a code to and then charting those recognized units. Three basic relationships between units are sought: units above, units below, and units contemporary. Content and composition combined with superposition allow for the collation of stratigraphic units. The most basic rule of the Harris matrix is that the units must follow the laws and principles 103 of stratigraphy; any violation of these rules will be apparent in the matrix. In this dissertation, I subscribe to the rules of the Harris Matrix, but do not utilize all the available options of presentation or analysis. Correlated units (i.e., units that were originally parts of a single unit) are not linked by horizontal lines, but instead are included in a box. A unique coding system is used, primarily to allow the reader to trace the relevant excavation pit idealized in the matrix. Finally, I do not employ phasing or periodization as is possible in the Harris matrix system. The concept of interface (Harris 1979: 43-48) is integral to this analysis, but only those with direct bearing on the
stratigraphic sequence and collation are given notice in the matrix.2
Each designated stratigraphic unit was assigned a unique code, consisting of year of excavation, unit number, section direction, and stratigraphic unit number. Each section was entered into both the Arched and Stratify programs. Obviously contemporary units, including the humic pottery bearing upper layer and the sterile subsoil, were linked. Using the criteria of superposition, content, and character, likely corresponding intermediate units are progressively linked and ordered. As the individual stratigraphic units are integrated into the matrix, continuous layers become apparent and are considered strata. Stratigraphic units that do not extend across the site, i.e., are localized within a single section, are Aset off@ and their relationship to strata determined. This process allows for the determination of the stratigraphy across the site and the horizontal extent of each stratigraphic unit. Each of these strata is given a roman numeral designation and the stratigraphic units arranged to demonstrate relationship.
Ha r r i s Cr e e k (8Vo24) Harris Creek is a large shell heap located on Tick Island in the middle St. Johns basin (Figure 18), one of a number of substantial sites located on the island (Miller and Griffin 1978). Harris Creek was originally investigated by C.B. Moore as the adjunct to his major investigations at
2 The availability of software to draw Harris matrices eases the task. This research used two of these packages: Arched 1.41 and Stratify 1.4. Arched is used to draw matrices while Stratify is a relational database for stratigraphic data that is primarily aimed at organizing and analyz- ing that data using principles of the Harris Matrix. Stratify automatically draws the matrix based on optional conditions. In both programs, no automatic means of assigning relationships between stratigraphic units is provided; all decisions of relationship is left to the archaeologist. The matrices provide a way of visualizing what relationships are determined and which are not. The software only assists in collating many individually documented stratigraphic units. 104
Hardscrabble
Tick Island Complex
Harris Creek
0 1km
V B NorthR Figure 18: Sites on Tick Island the Tick Island Mound (8Vo25) and adjacent shell heaps (8Vo221 and 8Vo222). During 1961 salvage operations at the site while it was being commercially mined for shell, a portion of a Mt. Taylor mortuary mound was excavated and recorded. A full accounting of the excavations was not completed before the death of the primary archaeologist: a short report (Bullen 1962) and a posthumous manuscript, concerned mainly with artifacts from the site and later excavations (Jahn 105 and Bullen 1978), comprised the bulk of information regarding this mound until a 1999 report by Lawrence Aten. Inspired by alternate interpretations of monumental shell constructions during the Archaic period in Florida (Russo 1991; 1994; 1996), Aten, who had assisted Ripley Bullen during the 1961 excavations at Harris Creek, decided to provide a fuller report, integrating the earlier work of C.B. Moore (including unpublished field notes) and Francis Bushnell with the field notes of Bullen and an analysis of the materials recovered in 1961. The product of Aten=s efforts provides the fullest picture yet of Mt. Taylor mortuary practices, and goes a tremendous way towards understanding the complex stratigraphic situation found at Mt. Taylor mounds. This paper represents a watershed moment in the archaeology of harvester-gatherer monumentality, and provides a robust model of mortuary traditions and construction during the Mt. Taylor period. Therefore, it is the most appropriate preface to the Upper St. Johns site descriptions. Aten uses geoarchaeological principles and lithostratigraphic terminology to describe and present the site stratigraphy as recorded by Bullen in 1961. This terminology is meant to provide standard descriptors of stratigraphic units, similar to the principle of the Harris matrix as employed in this dissertation. Without expressing an explicit theoretical stance towards monumentality, Aten forwards the stratigraphy as his primary evidence to argue for the presence of a Mt. Taylor burial mound composed of at least seven construction layers and in the form of a generally flat platform subsumed by later shell deposition. He does not take a final stance on the origination of the material used in construction, but seeks to demonstrate that the materials used were placed to create and expand the mound form. Definitions of Aten=s lithostratigraphic terms and their relation to the Harris matrix system used in this dissertation follow:
Interfaces/Depositional Discontinuities: One of the most important and productive stratigraphic concepts used is the importance of interfaces/depositional discontinuities. The contact between units of deposition, Aten describes three types of interfaces, described below. Bullen recorded interfaces on the Harris Creek stratigraphic sections, representing interruptions of deposition (143).
Unconformity: Significant breaks in deposition due either to erosion or to extended non- 106 deposition and stability of the ground surface. Processes that produce unconformities include incipient soil development and cultural usage of a surface (143). I would add that examples of unconformities in shell deposits would include layers of naturally deposited soils, organic lenses, charcoal/ash rich lenses, and thin layers of crushed shell. In the Harris matrix system, unconformities are described as horizontal layer interfaces (Harris 1979: 124). Unfortunately, specific use of this concept can only be used occasionally in the upper St. Johns site descriptions presented here. C.B. Moore and other archaeologists rarely recorded any description of most interfaces, but all excavators of the upper St. Johns sites would note any remarkable characteristics of these interfaces. There is a presumption that such interfaces existed, as the presence of depositional discontinuities is one of the primary means of distinguishing archaeological strata. Conversely, the lack of these discontinuities in off-horizontal planes of matrix demonstrates the unity of strata and the effort and intention of mound strata construction (Gibson 2006).
Angular Unconformity: A product of the Aremoval of substantial underlying material cutting across the principal planes of deposition followed by placement of new material bedded or oriented in another direction@ (Aten 1999: 143). This type of interface is referred to as an interface of destruction in the Harris matrix system and is described using the Law of original continuity (Harris 1979: 124).
Disconformity: A result of limited sediment removal or disturbance. Examples listed by Aten include: tree roots, tree throws, animal burrows, and postholes (1999: 143). Cultural and natural transforms can apparently produce disconformities. Within the Harris matrix system, a disconformity can be an interface of destruction, and/or a vertical feature interface. In this dissertation, disconformities are not typically discussed, though recognized in some of the original documentation. There are exceptions where relevant, and cultural disconformities are considered types of features, e.g., grave pits and postholes. Within Aten=s system, the fill within a disconformity can be a type of:
Deposit: A stratigraphic unit of limited extent, and used for local features and lithologic variations (Aten 1999: 138). A deposit may or may not be associated with a disconform ity. For example, the matrix of a refuse filled pit, the ash, charcoal, and faunal material of a shallow pit hearth, and a pile of sand intentionally heaped on a surface and subsequently buried are types of deposits. There is not direct correlate to deposit in the Harris matrix system, but all would be regarded as a unit of stratification. An obviously useful concept, I utilize Aten=s notion of deposit for the relevant site descriptions.
Layer: Used for Asediments between interfaces when the units could be mapped across all or much of the excavated area, or that have implications for the whole area; they are based largely on continuity, geometry, superposition, and to some extent, lithologic unity (Aten 1999: 138)@. In the Harris matrix system, the man-made layer and natural layer, both units of stratification, would be generally equivalent to Aten=s layer. In this dissertation, the layer of Aten is equivalent to my use of stratum. I use layer to refer to generally horizontal units of stratification as revealed within individual excavation 107 units.
Stratigraphy and Mortuary Deposits The Harris Creek site, like many, if not most, shell mound sites in the middle St. Johns basin has been subjected to intensive commercial mining of the shell. During the last major mining episode at Harris Creek, Ripley Bullen acquired emergency funding for three weeks to document the immense number of Archaic burials that were being exposed and destroyed. The operator who owned Amining rights@ to the shell burial mound allowed Bullen to record what he could. What he could included ca. 73 meters of section drawings and the location of 184 burials. The operator estimated digging a thousand burials and sending them to the shell shaker. In the words of Aten, this can safely translated to Aa lot@ (1999: 17). A total of eight stratigraphic layers and two Aplaceholder@ layers are described by Aten (Figure
Figure 19: Harris Creek Sections 108 19). The placeholder layers represent all intact deposits below those recorded, approximately 1.5 meters (Layer 1) and all deposits above those recorded, i.e., those removed prior to Bullen=s arrival (Layer 10). The remaining eight layers described are all associated with the Mt. Taylor period, and represent intentional construction layers. The mound seems to have generally taken the form of a kidney bean, and at its latest manifestation and greatest dimension, measured an approximate 40 meters in length, 26 meters in width, and greater than 2 meters in height (Aten 1999: Table 1). Layer 2 is a large contiguous stratum of shell that was found across the excavation and is considered to be a basal layer. No mortuary features are found in this layer, and it is composed of two sequential deposits: and earlier snail and brown Adirt@ matrix and a later clean small snail matrix. This layer is estimated to be approximately 15-by-30 m measuring 90 cm in height. Layer 3 rests on Layer 2 unconformably. Above Layer 2 is the first mortuary layer, Mortuary A, a component of Layer 3. Two major structural features, including a Awhite sand zone@ and a ABlack Zone,@ both described shortly, and three or four levels of postholes were recorded as part of this layer. The white sand is associated directly with the mortuary deposits, the result of two principle behaviors: the piling of white sand atop Layer 2 that included the covering of a large grave pit that was eventually surrounded by the shell component of Layer 3, and, the digging of pits into the shell of Layer 3 that were then filled and/or covered with white sand. All the white sand deposits were localized, most being in the range of less than a meter in diameter and a few centimeters thick, with at least one large sand deposit measuring 2.5 to 3 m across and as much as 60 cm thick. Layer 3 draped over all of Layer 2, but particular components of the layer, including the white sand and black matrix mentioned above, are localized. Approximate dimensions of Layer 3 are 34-by-20 m, raising the mound height to 1.2 m at the thickest. A total of 78 burials are associated with Mortuary B. Remains of fires, including charcoal/ash and calcined shell, were found in association with the mortuary deposits. In some of the small grave pits, a fire was built at the base of pit and human skeletal remains, perhaps in wrappings, are placed on this fire, and white sand thrown on top of the fire/bones, extinguishing the fire. Occasionally, evidence of burning is found on the bone. Such an 109 association was found with a large grave pit, the only such pit found during the project. Located at just over a meter east of the northeast margin of the ABlack Zone@ and near the base of Level 3, the pit was ovoid in shape, measuring about 1.1 m in the long axis, and dug into Layer 2 to a depth of approximately 90 cm. Near the base of the pit the unspecified bones of a child and the skulls of two adults, along with a few post-cranial adult bones, were deposited in a fill containing shell and sand. A fire was placed immediately above these bones, calcining the shell and eventually cementing the shell, bone, and sand into a mass. Above this fire, a fill of white sand, brown mottled sand, a few mussel shells and very few snail shells was placed in the pit. Above this fill, the remains of eight individuals was placed in a fill of white sand with some charcoal. The crania of these eight individuals nearly touched each other, and a substantial amount of charcoal found between two of the burials. An unidentified black material was found with these skeletons. A large pile of white sand was placed atop the pit, likely directly over. Some of the posts found in Layer 3 may have formed a screen, fence, or structure surrounding this pit. Other burials were placed around the large pit within the fill of Layer 3, but none were placed directly above the pit. Layer 3 included the only extended burial encountered (Aten 1999: Table 2). Included in Layer 3 was a deposit referred to as the ABlack Zone@ (Aten 1999: 167). Described by Bullen (1978: 21) as a Alens of black charcoal-impregnated sand, six inches thick (15 cm), which covered an area about five by ten feet (1.5 m-by-3 m). Bullen interpreted this black zone as possibly the remains of a fire that was underneath a structure or platform that held wrapped bodies for drying or smoking, which led him to the conclusion that a charnel house may have been built here, and that bodies were buried over time in the accompanying Layer 3 matrix (Aten 1999: 167). Despite the description of this black matrix as charcoal-impregnated and the observation that it was underlain in at least part by calcined shell, Aten is of the opinion that there was not much charcoal based on the inability of a radiocarbon lab to find enough charcoal for dating in soil samples sent in and originating from this deposit in 1964. Instead, Aten suggests that this black deposit originated on a mound summit and was composed of various organics, some animal bone, and including localized abundances of charcoal. Three individual burials are found directly 110 under the black lens, which Aten finds as a significant lack of grave density. Based on the plot of Mortuary A burial locations (1999: Fig. 17), there may be a comparable density under and near the black lens, with 13 crania being found under and within 1.5 m of the deposit limits. Burials are found wherever excavations were made in Mortuary A. Horizontal excavations in 1961 are mainly restricted to 3 10-by-10 foot squares. The large grave pit is in the northeast square, while the black lens is found in the west majority of the two units west and southwest of the large grave pit. A total of 34 postholes were recorded in the excavations of Layer 3, 32 of which are plotted in a sinuous line along the east fringe and immediately beyond the black lens. In doing, the line of posts divide the area between the black lens and the large grave pit. There is no contact surface between the black lens and any of the postholes, but all lie stratigraphically beneath the deposit. Based on the top elevation of the postholes, Aten groups these features into four levels. In each level, he reconstructs any evident structural patterns. No pattern was found in Level 2. Two tentative right-angled alignments are found in Level 1, the lowest, and an arc is found in both Levels 3 and 4. None of the 32 postholes described are found in the square of the large grave pit. The lack of horizontal exposure at this layer prevents determining if further post holes existed. Overlying and resting unconformably on Layer 3 is Layer 4, described as dark brown sandy matrix with small snail shell and fairly uniform throughout. Mortuary B was found as a component of Layer 4, and included nearly half of the burials found at the site (n=67). The discussion of Mortuary B is limited compared to Mortuary A, mainly due to the lack of major distinguished deposits including large grave pits, large white sand deposits, black organic/charcoal-impregnated lenses, or posts (Aten 1999: 173). Burials, mainly displaying flexed treatments, were placed into the Layer 4 fill. It appears that white sand was not associated with burials in Mortuary B, but artifacts are somewhat more common (Aten 1999: 179). The maximum dimensions of Layer 4 are estimated as 40-by-21 m and raised the mound to a maximum height of 1.5 meters. Layer 5 is only briefly described. Resting unconformably atop Layer 4, the matrix is described as dark Adirt@ with small snail shells. A total of eight burials are associated with Layer 5, and Aten 111 does not consider there to be a cemetery or designated mortuary area in the layer. This layer seems to have been primarily an expansion of the mound to the east, resulting in a larger mound footprint and increased the size of the summit platform (Aten 1999: 177). The maximum dimensions of the mound following the deposition of Layer 5 is estimated at 40+-by-24 m, with the mound remaining at a height of 1.5 meters. Resting unconformably on Layer 5, Layer 6 is described as primarily clean shell, with a single localized deposit of Ashell and dirt@ (Aten 1999: 145). This layer is mainly an expansion of the mound to the east and increasing the height of the summit platform. Interpreted by Aten as midden refuse and an area of intentional dumping Asince the dark-colored sediment and decayed organic debris of domestic use areas was largely absent@ (1999: 144), I would assert that the lack of organics and soil indicate that this was a rapid and intentional accumulation, but not the dumping of midden refuse. Instead, I would interpret this layer of clean shell as an example of rapid shell construction. No burials are associated with Layer 6. The dimensions of Layer 6 are estimate at greater than 40-by-26 meters, and raised the mound to a height of 2 meters. Layer 7 appears to be another expansion of the mound vertically and to the east. This layer rested unconformably on Layer 6 in most areas, but there are some local disconformities. This layer included several hearths with burned shell and ash, fishbone, and a lens of burned mussels a meter across (Aten 1999: 147), some of the clearest indications of consumptive behavior in the mound. The context of these food preparation areas on the summit of a mortuary monument supports an interpretation of feasting (Beasley 2007). There is only one mortuary deposit associated with this layer, but is a bit unusual and worth comment. This was a large grave pit that originated in Layer 7 extending down into Layer 4 (Aten 1999: Figure 5), and is one of two large grave pits, the other being the large multi-person pit found in Layer 2. A single flexed skeleton is reported for this pit, but no artifacts were reported. Resting upon an angular unconformity on the northern side of the deposits, Layer 8 is composed of a mixture of deposits. The basic matrix is a dark brown soil with small snail shell, lenses of mussels and larger snail shell, occasional lenses of white sand, faunal remains including fish, deer, 112 bird, small animals, and turtle, as well as marine shells. Aten interprets this as another construction layer, perhaps being redeposited material (1999: 147). An alternate possibility is that this deposit represents the discard of special-use refuse on a mound flank (Jackson and Scott 2003). Four burials were associated with Layer 8, including Burial 51, which had what may have been deer antler headgear that could not be recovered (Aten 1999: Tables 2, 5). A layer of muck that may have originated from a marsh bottom and transported to the mound overlay Layers 4 and 7, referred to as Layer 9. Ceramics were found in this layer, including Orange and St. Johns types. This layer appears to cap the Mt. Taylor mound and is associated with a later site occupation. The Bluffton Burial Mound, another Mt. Taylor mound in the middle St. Johns basin and containing a single extended individual, has a similar layer of gumbo muck as a mound stratum (Sears 1960: Figure 2). Aten=s description of the history of cultural deposition at Harris Creek is the fullest exposition of the stratigraphy of a multi-interment Mt. Taylor mound to date. Despite the immense tragedy of the destruction of the Harris Creek site, the lengthy sections revealed and the large area investigated allows for major strata to be followed across and through a single mound and to better understand the presence of a large number of human interments and their relationship to mound strata and structure. Many of the features of Harris Creek are found at other Mt. Taylor sites, including the four mortuary monuments discussed in this dissertation: Palmer-Taylor Mound, Persimmon Mound, Persimmon Mound II, and Orange Mound. Aten discusses the similarities between Harris Creek and Orange Mound, listing 6 specifically:
1) Same local environment, shell midden matrix, and subsistence strategies
2) Mound orientation
3) Pre-Orange period burials
4) Bundled burial
5) White sand layers, associated with mortuary deposits
6) White sand surmounted by brown sand with additional skeletal remains (1999: 176) 113 These are important features of comparison between Mt. Taylor sites. Below, I make comparison between Harris Creek and four upper St. Johns mounds, using some of the similarities pointed out by Aten, and including several other specific structural features found at Harris Creek.
Pa l m e r -Ta y l o r Mo u n d (8Se18)
Setting The Palmer-Taylor Mound is located on the west bank of the St. Johns river just north of Puzzle Lake and directly above the confluence of the Econlockhatchee river and the St. Johns (Figure
20). 3 Several other sites are located in close proximity to Palmer-Taylor, including the small rise
Palmer-Taylor Mound
Great Kilbee Mound
Buzzard’s Roost
0 175 350 700
Meters V B NorthR Figure 20: Area of Palmer-Taylor Mound
3 The approximate UTM coordinates of the mound are UTM Zone 17S, Easting 496591, Northing 3174557, found on the Geneva 7.5’ USGS quadrangle. 114 immediately adjacent to the mound referred to as the Shapfeld Mound and the Mt. Taylor period shell heap Buzzard=s Roost. Other sites found within a 1km radius of Palmer-Taylor include the Cabin Mound, Tozzer Mound, Twin Tree Mound, Great Kilbee Mound, Catfish Mound, and Hog Island Mound. Data are insufficient to determine if any of these sites, excluding Shapfeld and Buzzard=s Roost, date to the Mt. Taylor period. Palmer-Taylor is situated near a small grouping of low hills surrounded by wet prairie. The site regularly floods today, but is accessible by land during low water. The surrounding geology is late Pleistocene or early Holocene in origin, consisting mainly of relic beach and dune sands, with silts and clays from being lagoonal or estuarine interfaces (Scott 2001). Rock of any sort is rare on the surface, but underlying karstic limestones could be exposed in springs or caverns (White 1970). Utilitarian stone is always non-local. The nearest access to water is at the present Econlockhatchee River channel, approximately 200 meters distant. Surrounding the site to the east is freshwater marsh, suitable for airboat traversing, but difficult to navigate by other means (Figure 21). A large pond is found just to the east of the site
Figure 21: View East from Palmer- Taylor Mound 115
Figure 22: View from East towards Palmer- Taylor Mound and Suspected Spring that may have been a spring during the Middle Archaic, when sea levels were lower (Balsillie and Donoghue 2004; Figure 22). This pond exhibits characteristics that encourage this interpretation: the pond retains water during dry periods and the circular shape of the pond is reminiscent of sinkholes. Further research is needed to test this thesis. The site consists of a semi-conical shell heap, approximately 3 meters in height, a thin shell apron to the north, and an additional small shell heap to the northeast, known as the Shapfeld Mound. Along the east-west and north-south axes, the primary mound measures approximately 88 meters in diameter in each direction (Figure 23). Including the shell apron and Shapfeld Mound, the site covers approximately .95 hectares. Despite some damage due to mining of shell for road fill and previous excavations, the site remains in excellent shape, no doubt in part to its inaccessibility.
Previous Research John and William Bartram passed the site in 1766 and likely came within eyesight of the mound twice, but it is not mentioned (Bartram 1942). Jeffries Wyman does not mention the site in his works on the St. Johns shell heaps (1868; 1875). The first archaeological notice of the Palmer- 116
1 meter
1
2 meter 2 3 4 4N 5 3N 6 2N 7 1N 1W 3 meter 1 4W 2W 2 3W
9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Moore 1892 Units Excavators’ Club 1941 Units 10 0 10 20
Rollins 1975 Units meters Rollins 1976 Units Figure 23: Excavations at Palmer-Taylor Mound
Taylor site is by Francis LeBaron, who located a shell heap in the vicinity of the Econlockhatchee confluence on his 1877-78 map of archaeological sites in Florida, but it is difficult to be certain that Palmer-Taylor is the corresponding site. In February of 1892, C.B. Moore spent two days excavating at the Palmer-Taylor site, referred to as the AShell Heap Near Econlockhatchee Creek@ in his publications and notes (1892b; 1893c; FN1; FN3). The publication describes the mound as approximately 6 feet high, sloping in all directions towards surrounding wet prairie. The site Alooms like an island in the prairie which in wet weather becomes a marsh@ (Moore 1893c: 609). 117 Moore’s 1892 Excavations
Excavation I
The following description is derived from Moore=s publications and his field notebooks. Excavation I is described by Moore in detail. Located at the apex of the mound, the excavation was 6 feet (1.83 m) by 4 feet (1.22 m) by 7 feet (2.13 m) deep (Figure 24). The first foot (30 cm) was composed of sand and shell, which contained pottery and faunal remains (a in Moore=s
Horizontal Arbitrary
3AND POWDERED SHELL M92U1_1 POTTERY FAUNA SHELL DISK
"ROKEN AND FRAGMENTED 3AND POWDERED SHELL HUMAN BONES hIN GREAT SLIGHT ADMIXTURE WHOLE NUMBERv THROUGHOUT SHELL HUMAN BONES STRATA INCLUDING ON M92U1_2 FAUNA hHEARTHv AT INTERFACE WHERE THEY WERE hTREATED IN RESPECT TO BREAKAGE AS WERE BONES { M92U1_3 #HARCOAL OF LOWER ANIMALSv
M92U1_4 3HELL WITH SLIGHT ADMIXTURE OF SAND
M92U1_5 3AND AND WHOLE SHELL
3!.$
CM
Moore Palmer-Taylor Excavation 1 Feb.. 4, 1892. Section based on written description, FN1: 46-47, FN3: 101, 1893c Figure 24: Moore Excavation I Section 118 designation system). No pottery was found by Moore below this point. The second layer (b) was described as 2 feet (60 cm) thick, with powdered, broken, and whole shells. Throughout this layer were found many human bone fragments, some with burning, in association with a dog jaw that Moore detailed throughly, and animal feces. The finding of a dog mandible may be the first occasion of discovering canine remains in Middle Archaic contexts in Florida. Due to the scattering of the bones, Moore could not make an estimate to the number of individuals, but did recover four crania fragments. Likely, many more individuals were represented in the deposit. Between the second and third layers, Moore found a lens of charcoal he describes as a hearth. Human bones, broken and burnt, were found in association with this charcoal. The third layer (c), was 1.5 feet (46 cm) thick and described by Moore as pure shell and sand, with little else. The fourth layer (d) recognized by Moore consisted of 2.5 feet (76 cm) of sand and whole shell, with no bones or pottery. At the base of this layer he encountered Aswamp muck@.
Excavation II
Moore=s Excavation II is described as being on the east side of the mound, 10 yards (9.1 m) down the slope from Excavation I and 1.5 feet (46 cm) lower vertically. The excavation measured 6 feet (1.83 m) by 3 feet (.91 m), by 4 feet (1.22 m) deep, and only penetrated the first two layers. Again, pottery was found only in the upper layer (Figure 25). Human bone was found in small numbers, along with animal bones. Two crania fragments were recognized. The unit was taken no further, and no specific mention is made of the charcoal lens.
Excavation III
A third excavation is recorded in Moore=s field notebook as aA small hole about 2 2 feet deep.@ No human remains and Anothing of particular interest@ were found (FN1). There are no clues to the location of this excavation unit and no indication that Moore returned to Palmer-Taylor during any of his later sojourns on the St. Johns. Moore felt that the osteological assemblage was material evidence of a cannibalistic feast and that the Ahypothesis of burials, even of disconnected bones, would seem untenable, as absolutely nothing found in association with them pointed to interments@ (1893c: 612). Clearly, Moore did 119 Horizontal Arbitrary
3AND POWDERED SHELL AND POTTERY M92U2_1
3AND POWDERED SHELL SLIGHT ADMIXTURE OF M92U2_1 WHOLE SHELL FRAGMENTED HUMAN BONE
$EPOSITS #ONTINUED
CM
Moore Palmer-Taylor Excavation 2 Feb.. 4, 1892. Section based on written description, FN1: 46-47, FN3: 101, 1893c Figure 25: Moore Excavation II Section not feel that the human remains at Palmer-Taylor represented an intentional mortuary deposit.
Excavators’ Club Excavations During the Christmas break of 1940-41, the Excavators= Club, a group of undergraduate and graduate students from Harvard and Radcliffe Universities, drove from Cambridge to the marshes of the upper St. Johns to excavate for one week at Palmer-Taylor (Davis 1999). This endeavor used what were then innovative recording techniques to excavate in whole or part eight 2x2 meter units in an L-shaped pattern at the apex of the mound and three test pits near the margins of the mound. The group also conducted limited testing at nearby sites (Rouse 1951). The goals of the field crew were laudable, and they accomplished much in such a short time. World War II interrupted the reporting of the Excavators= Club work. A manuscript based on the Palmer-Taylor data was written by the Anthropology Club of the Harvard Peabody Museum 120 in 1947 (Dyson and Tooker 1947; Rouse 1951; Davis 1999). I have as yet failed to locate a copy of this manuscript, so the description of the Excavators= Club excavation must rely on Rouse=s synopsis of the materials. The next published reference to Palmer-Taylor after Moore is in Rouse=s Survey of Indian River Archeology (1951: 116-126). Thanks to the work by the Excavators= Club, Palmer-Taylor is one of the most detailed accounts of upper St. Johns sites in this publication. He reviews the published work by Moore, and treats the 1940 material thoroughly. Rouse acquired the Palmer-Taylor
,OAM WITH FINELY CRUSHED SHELL ABORIGINAL AND HISTORIC ARTRIFACTS 41_1_1 DISTURBED HUMAN REMAINS
#OARSE LOOSE SHELL WITH ADMIXTURE OF 41_1_2 LOAM DISTURBED BURIAL !SHY GREY SOIL WITH SHELL SOME CONCRETIONS hPIT LIKEv CONCENTRATIONS 41_1_3 OF SHELL PRIMARY FLEXED BURIAL WITH ASSOCIATED #HARCOAL 41_1_4 ANTLER PROJECTILE POINT NOTCHED BONE TURTLE SHELLS 3HELL WITH VARYING ADMIXTURE OF CHARCOAL AND ASH SOME PARTS LARGELY ASH OR CHARCOAL 41_1_5 SHELLS COMPACT BUT MAINLY WHOLE
'REY SAND WITH 41_1_6 SOME SHELL ASH PIT SOME FAUNA
"LACK SANDY SOIL 41_1_7 WITH SCATTERED 7ATER TABLE SHELL BONE ARTIFACTS
41_1_8 &INE