Serving Parkland and Neighboring Areas

Serving Parkland and neighboring areas. www.theparklander.com

the PARKLANDER 121 Take a Look into Parkland’s Margate-Blount Archaeological Site Discovering Layers of the PAST By Dr. Peter John Ferdinando

he similarities between the job of a pastry chef and that of an archaeologist may not be evident Timmediately to the reader. Both professions, however, are obsessed with layers. A pastry chef builds up layers of delicious sponge, sweet filling, and colorful frosting to construct a glorious cake. An archaeologist excavates through the dirt, muck, and sand in search of the layers of the past. As they dig deeper and deeper into the ground, they, in fact, are moving back in time. Understanding the stratigraphy of an archaeological site, that is these layers of soil and artifacts deposited in the earth over the eons, helps archaeologists interpret the history of the ABOVE: Members of the BCAS excavating at Margate Blount people who lived there. LOWER LEFT: A Nineteenth-century Seminole Warrior Peeling back the layers of hard work of archaeologists and .50 caliber musket ball Marcos-style vessel indicate the Margate-Blount archaeo- and their teams of excava- suggest a possible visit by a a visit by Yamasee from the logical site demonstrates that tors at the site reveals much, Seminole party at some point northern reaches of then- Parkland’s past stretches from brief stops by Seminole in the eighteenth or nine- Spanish La Florida. As they back thousands of years. The and Yamasee, to a long- teenth century. The site’s high cooked around a campfire, lasting pre-European contact ground provided a dry place one of their cooking pots Native American village. The upon which to camp for the broke and they abandoned it Margate-Blount site thus tells night, and the close-by waters on the site for future archae- a layered story about the resi- of the Everglades offered an ologists to uncover. dents and visitors to a small easy dinner of fish, turtles, stretch of high ground located or other aquatic animals. It is Site Abandonment, on the edge of the Florida easy to picture, in the embers A.D. 1500-1670 Everglades in what is today of a campfire, a Seminole Moving down through the the city of Parkland. unpacking his bag and losing layers of the site and thus the gun flint and musket ball back further in time, Margate- Seminole and in the encroaching darkness Blount seems to have sat Yamasee Visitors, at the dusk of the day. A little empty for the sixteenth and A.D. 1670-1850 earlier, sometime in the late much of the seventeenth After digging through a layer seventeenth or early to mid- century. Archaeologists found of modern twentieth-century eighteenth centuries, another little evidence for visitation trash, archaeologists at Mar- party of Native Americans or occupation by the origi- gate-Blount found indications also paused at the site. The nal southern Florida Native for several stopovers at the recovery of five broken frag- Americans during the time of site. The recovery of a gun flint ments from the same San early European contact. Other

the PARKLANDER 19 HEALTH & WELLNESS The changing decorations on these ceramics further demonstrate that Native Americans occupied the village site from around 500 B.C. through A.D. 1500. Indeed, much like the inevitable change in the styles of computers and cell phones, Native Americans altered the designs on their pottery through the years. archaeological sites in the ridge near the edge of the easily identified this village Florida peninsula have vari- Everglades, which gave the from its midden and burial ous contact-era goods, from residents access to a well- mound. This midden, an ac- shipwreck metals and iron stocked natural larder, while cumulation of dirt, discarded tools, to trade beads and the also providing them a refuge animal bones and shells, buttons of European clothing, from the water. Archaeologists sherds of pottery, and broken but the archaeologists work- ing at Margate-Blount found only two beads of undeter- mined age. Moreover, while the Spaniards discussed the Tequesta who resided at the mouth of the Miami River, the Blount residents evidently Jeaga who lived along the had contact with groups living coast of modern Palm Beach on the coast, because they County, and the Mayaimi maintained bustling exchange who occupied small villages networks that brought marine around Lake Okeechobee, shell and shark teeth into the they did not mention any Florida interior. They used people in the vicinity of the these as tools, the shells to Margate-Blount site. Why make hammers and chisels Native Americans abandoned and the shark teeth as cutting this location for these couple edges. The recovered ceram- of hundred years is unknown. ics also indicate likely regional contacts with the peoples A Small but Bustling of the Everglades Culture to Village, 500 B.C. to the South, the Belle Glade A.D. 1500 Culture from around Lake Archaeologists, however, Okeechobee and the Kis- discovered ample evidence at simmee River Valley, and Margate-Blount for a long- even some of the peoples lasting, pre-European con- who lived on the west coast tact Native American village. of Florida. The frequency of This settlement sat on a high pottery types from Margate- Blount, however, aligns the inhabitants most closely with shell, bone, and wood tools, the primarily coastal East along with other detritus, Okeechobee Culture of Palm helps reveal a lot about the Beach and Martin counties. lives of the people living there. The changing decorations on The people ate much fish, tur- these ceramics further dem- tle, and snake, supplemented onstrate that Native Ameri- with a smaller amount of cans occupied the village site mammals like raccoon, opos- from around 500 B.C. through sum, and deer. The Margate- A.D. 1500. Indeed, much like

TOP RIGHT: The BCAS Traipsing to the Site ABOVE: A Tequesta Manufacturing Clay Pottery LEFT: BCAS break time: (L to R) Ed Paullin, Milt Wolfe, Viola Shaffer, Fred Kirsch, Helen Alpirin, Wilma Williams and Howard “Butch” Roloff.

20 SEPTEMBERJANUARY 20152015 Although there the exhaustion of the local wildlife and changes in water is no evidence levels. of earlier human visitors The First Known Parkland to the site, Residents, Some paleontologists 3000 Years Ago have found fossils Peeling back the last layer of of megafauna Margate-Blount, archaeolo- PERSONAL ARTIFACTS: gists came to the earliest like mammoths evidence of human activity Carved Bone and mastodons in at the site. Deep in a trench, and Antler from Parkland. they found fragments of Margate-Blount semi-fiber tempered pottery. Southern Florida Native Along with shell tools and Americans made these pot sherds, archaeologists the inevitable change in the talking about the peoples ceramics using clay and recovered intricately carved styles of computers and cell who lived around Lake plant fibers some three thou- bone and antler artifacts phones, Native Americans Okeechobee in the sixteenth sand years ago. The then- from Margate-Blount. altered the designs on their century, Spaniard Hernando inhabitants of the site again They date to A.D. 1200- pottery through the years. de Escalante Fontaneda may have moved seasonally 1500, and depict various While the ceramics from stated that such interior through the landscape, living animals, including a more Margate-Blount midden towns included between on the freshwater resources realistically-realized dab- indicate Native American twenty to forty inhabitants. of the Everglades and ma- bling duck, turtle, and an utilization of the site for This number is a clear con- rine animals of the Atlantic eel or barracuda, a more some two thousand years, trast with some of the larger Ocean. Although there is no stylized rattlesnake, and the questions about the local east-coast Native American evidence of earlier human vulture pictured above (size population size, and cycles towns of at least several visitors to the site, paleon- about 2.4”). Many of these of occupation and abandon- hundred residents. Although tologists have found fossils carvings came from an ment remain. The number their village may have been of megafauna like mam- area in-between the village of inhabitants of the village small, the construction and moths and mastodons in use of a burial mound at midden and burial mound, probably fluctuated between Parkland. It is quite possible Margate-Blount, along with which also included the two to four dozen individu- that Paleo-Indian hunters the abundant food resources burials of alligators, turtles, als. Indeed, although he was also lived in the region as from the Everglades, raccoons, and rattlesnakes. they tracked these various suggest Native Ameri- The artifacts small size animals, but such a supposi- cans lived year-round suggests use as personal tion awaits confirmation by at the site from about adornments, with the new discoveries. depictions perhaps evoking A.D. 750 through to 1500. Moving back clan affiliation or individual Preservation and to the period from affinity with specific ani- Research mals. Former Florida State 500 B.C. to A.D. 750, Archaeologist Dr. Ryan J. the far fewer pottery The layers of Parkland’s Wheeler studied the ancient sherds may indicate Margate-Blount tell us about art of Florida in-depth, and the presence of either the past of a small patch argued effectively for stylistic less people or more of southern Florida. The connections between such intermittent occu- preservation of such cultural Florida artifacts and the pation of Margate- resources is a vital, and the designs and motifs devel- Blount. Also, every valiant efforts of Ken Cutler oped by the peoples of few generations the and Jeff Schwartz to edu- the Hopewellian Culture residents may have cate the public and preserve of the Ohio Valley and the abandoned the site in the site is an important first Mississippian Culture of the response to chang- step. Continued research on wider American Southeast. ing environmental the artifacts from Margate- A Timucua chief conditions, including Blount, however, is essential

“It is fitting for us to celebrate the long to confirm and challenge and admirable history archaeological interpreta- of Florida’s native tions about the site. The Palm peoples because Beach Museum of Natural Florida has been home History (www.pbmnh.org) to more than 25 tribal curates some materials from Margate-Blount. Study of groups... All of them these artifacts might tell us contribute to the rich much, from determining the and complex history season of capture of the ani- of our great state and mals eaten by the occupants to the rich diversity of to investigate whether Native cultures that make up Americans occupied the Florida.” village year-round, to using DNA and chemical residue Former Governor analysis to determine what Charlie Christ the Yamasee ate for dinner three hundred years ago. Ultimately, each new discov- Memorable Indian Sculptures ery adds another important A Depiction of Earlier Florida Inhabitants ingredient to the layers that make up Parkland’s past. P merican Royalty represents the resi- Artists Cooley and Cooley Jr. created each dents who were in Florida during the figure by first layering clay over a founda- Peter John Ferdinando holds Atime of the European contact in the tion armature of wood and metal. More a Ph.D. in history from Florida 16th Century. The artists, Bradley Cooley and more clay was applied and skillfully International University and and Bradley Cooley, Jr., of Lamont, Florida, modeled to become a life-like recreation an M.A. in anthropology from have based this statuary on engravings of their vision. When the clay figures were Florida Atlantic University. As done in the 17th Century by Theodor de completed to the last detail of hair, skin and an ethnohistorian, he uses Bry who created his work from the wa- clothing, they were prepared for casting by both historical documents tercolors of Jacques LeMoyne, an artist master mold-maker Carla Knight of Denver. and archaeological data to who traveled the Jacksonville area during The rubber molds of the figures were then undertake a holistic approach the 16th Century, recording the Timucuan shipped to the foundry in Colorado, where to understanding the past. people he encountered there. wax was poured into the molds to recreate a positive image. Ceramic molds were cast American Royalty represents a group of over these wax figures and heated to melt indigenous Florida people of the period and out the wax in preparation for the pouring in shows a king, queen and servant. The king of molten bronze heated to 2,000 degrees. Paintings by Theodore Morris, wears elaborate shell and stone jewelry and www.losttribesflorida.com After breaking away the ceramic molds, the has extensive tattooed patterns over his bronze figures were reassembled, cleaned Page 18 Mammoth Hunt body. In the 16th Century, tattoos were cre- and finished with varying shades of patina. Red Cacique ated by rubbing charcoal in small incisions Page 19 Warrior made in the skin. The king also wears a “It is important to tell the story of where we Page 20 Woman of the Sacred Clay bone and feather headdress, a sash woven came from and honor the native people of Spanish moss, and copper ear spools. who have inhabited Florida,” then Lt. Page 21 Chief Outina These ear ornaments were traded from the Governor Jeff Kottkamp said. “Understand- Page 21 Antler Bone: Photo Great Lakes area. The king’s long nails are ing our past helps to shape our future and Courtesy of the Graves indicative of his royal status. reminds us of our common goals and com- Collection, Broward College. mon future as Floridians.” Page 22 Statuary: American Royalty The queen also wears copper ear spools and a graceful drape of woven and American Royalty is the third sculptural Page 21 Bottom left photo credit braided Spanish moss. The servant, grouping installed outside of the R. A. Gray Miami Herald’s Mel Kenyon. wearing an alligator tooth necklace with a Building. Other groupings have included All other black and white photos from the Archaeo- copper pendent centerpiece, walks behind Movin’ On, representing the Miccosukee logical papers of the king and queen and is not permitted to Tribe of Indians in Florida of the 1930s and Wilma Williams, look upon them while carrying the king’s the Seminole Family, representing an 1830s History of Miami. deerskin robe. Seminole Indian family in Florida.

JANUARY 2015