Emergence of Place: the Great Circle of Fort Center, Glades County, Florida

Summary

In South Florida, earthen enclosures represent some of the earliest and largest communal monuments. At around 300 meters in diameter, Fort Center in Glades County, Florida contains one of the largest enclosures in the entire Southeast. As the earliest recorded earthwork at Fort Center, I argue the construction of the Great Circle acts as a trigger and anchor for coalescence and the establishment of place. Since this event occurs during a period of long term fisher-hunter-gatherer practices, examining the life cycle of this monumental enclosure offers insight into emergent institutions within these communities. Although contemporaneous and comparable earth moving occurred among northern Woodland Period communities, the Great Circle of Fort Center may have persisted as the creation of communal memory rather than developing as a result.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Biographies of Enclosure in Global Context

Keywords

Spatial Coverage