Wm. Jerald Kennedy’s Legacy of Archaeology in Palm Beach County, Florida

Summary

In the spring of 1989 Jerry Kennedy hired me to conduct fieldwork for the first archaeological reconnaissance survey of Palm Beach County. I drove around the county in Florida Atlantic University’s late 1980s model Ford Taurus wagon with a list from the Florida Master Site File, attempting to revisit as many sites as possible. The station wagon endured a fair bit of off road driving, including an excursion into the South Florida Water Management District’s newly establish DuPuis Environmental Area and the neighboring J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area. These public lands preserved sites along the Loxahatchee Scarp—an upland area rimming the northern edge of the Everglades. Later, as an archaeologist with the State of Florida, I was able to conduct a small study of one of these sites—the so-called Whitebelt Circle Ditch. Characterized by a large, circular ditch, the site resembles the Great Circle of Fort Center and other little-studied circle-ditch sites around Lake Okeechobee. This paper summarizes that research and the regional context of circle-ditch sites. Despite having to rescue me after the FAU wagon finally gave up the ghost, Jerry continued to be a wonderful mentor and friend, and for that I am truly grateful.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Adventures in Archaeology: A Symposium in Honor of Wm. Jerald Kennedy

Keywords

Spatial Coverage