Revising Sixteenth-Century Olive Jar Chronology: The View from Two Early Contact Sites in Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The chronology and morphology of Spanish olive jar has been divided into early, middle, and late styles since John Goggin's typology was first proposed in 1960, and this has formed a basis for dating sites with a colonial Spanish component for many decades. However, recent research and discoveries have suggested that changes and refinements in the existing chronology of olive jar form and characteristics are necessary. This paper will present our work and analysis of two major collections of sixteenth-century olive jar sherds from early contact sites in Florida: the Governor Martin site (8LE853), associated with the 1539-1543 Hernando de Soto expedition, and the Luna Settlement site (8ES1), from the 1559-1561 Tristán de Luna expedition. Based particularly on the quantitative analysis of sherd thicknesses as well as rim morphology, we propose revisions to the prevailing sixteenth-century olive jar chronology and terminology, which better reflects data recovered since Goggin’s landmark study.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow