South Florida (Other Keyword)
1-5 (5 Records)
South Florida’s tree island hammocks are islands that were once completely surrounded by water and used as habitation areas from the Archaic period and beyond. Although many islands along the coast can be dated using marine shell, interior tree islands (such as those found on Seminole Tribe of Florida reservation lands) generally lack these artifacts making for a difficult dating strategy. This paper will focus on a comparison of dating material, including shell, pottery, faunal bone, and...
Defining Boundaries: An Investigation of Boynton Mounds (8PB100) (2016)
In fall of 2013 preparations began for a limited study of the Boynton Mounds (8PB100) archaeological site. This group of earthwork lies nestled between the Okeechobee basin and East Okeechobee areas in central Palm Beach County Florida. Investigations aim to reveal similarities and dissimilarities between the two areas, which, in turn, may lead to a better understanding of regional variation in South Florida. The primary objective of this study is to identify which culture region Boynton Mounds...
Fort Center's Iconographic Bestiary: A Fresh Look at Fort Center's Zoomorphic Wood Carvings (2016)
The zoomorphic wood carvings excavated by William Sears from the mortuary pond at the Fort Center (8GL13) site in South Florida are a chronically understudied assemblage. These artifacts are generally interpreted as totems carved into a single contemporaneous dock structure built above the mortuary pond, later excavated in various states of degradation. I propose a preliminary typology through which to interpret their function. Beyond that, I discuss the form the carvings individually take and...
Mortuary Ritual at the Fort Center Mound-Charnel Pond Complex (8GL12): New Insights from an Accidental (Re)Discovery (2016)
William Sears’s reconstruction of a Hopewellian charnel platform with wood carvings at Fort Center (8GL12) is one of the more vivid imaginings of prehistoric ritual in Florida archaeology. This model has been influential in our thinking about ritual in the Okeechobee area. It was long believed that Sears’s excavations completely destroyed the pond-mound complex and that further data recovery would be impossible. Recently, wallowing wild hogs (Sus scrofa) uncovered wood artifacts in the Fort...
Relationality, Circularity, and Monumentality: Ontological Materializations in the Belle Glade Monumental Landscape (2017)
The Belle Glade monumental landscape exhibits a high level of monumentality, with architectural features ranging from large circular ditches to massive geometric arrays of earthen architecture. However, this unique architecture has seen few archaeological interpretations. Those that have been put forth have largely emphasized economic explanations, many of which have been refuted with the acquisition of new archaeological data. Additionally, recent ecological studies show that the physical...