Trade, Tradition, and Rivalry: Late Pre-Columbian Craft and Exchange on the Central Peninsular Gulf Coast of Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper examines changes over time in the ways that fisher-hunter-gatherer communities on the central Gulf coast of peninsular Florida participated in the regional trade of specialized crafted goods. The social landscape of the greater Tampa Bay area appears to have become increasingly politically integrated between the end of the Woodland period and the time of Spanish contact; that is, during the Safety Harbor archaeological period. Changes in Safety Harbor sociopolitical organization and ideological schemas emerged through historical circumstances including interactions with neighboring complex farmer (Mississippian) and fisher (Calusa) societies. A recent research emphasis on residential contexts in the Safety Harbor area has expanded possibilities for investigating community organization and the interplay of local interactions and regional patterns of change. Craft production and trade were likely venues for social change at different scales. By transitioning from peripheral participants in Weeden Island era ceremonial culture to purveyors of raw and crafted shell goods, Safety Harbor people created a new role for themselves on the regional landscape, with implications for local historical trajectories.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25071