Squaring the Circle: Public Architecture of Fort Center and the Resiliency of Community

Summary

This is an abstract from the "*SE Hope for the Future: A Message of Resiliency from Archaeological Sites in South Florida" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Within the southern Florida interior, Fort Center is most widely known for its monumental architecture and 2,000-plus years of occupation within a dynamic, and at times unpredictable, landscape. In this paper I discuss how peoples’ early investment in communal architecture played a role in establishing and maintaining resiliency for successive generations. The architecture in question, an enclosed plaza, serves as a highly accessible communal space and was constructed with the expectation of cyclical environmental shifts. Although there are several other ditched encloses in the region, the persistence of Fort Center as a regional hub showcases how people recognized the value of connectivity regardless of perceived distance from one another. This is especially true now, when faced with ongoing and exacerbating environmental pressures.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• *SE Hope for the Future: A Message of Resiliency from Archaeological Sites in South Florida   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39665.0