Wooden Post Architecture and the Origins of Woodland Civic-Ceremonial Centers: New Evidence from the Spring Warrior Complex, Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Civic-ceremonial centers first emerged in the American Southeast near the Gulf of Mexico ca. AD 200–400 and served a dual purpose as home to resident villagers and as a place of ceremonial gatherings featuring feasts, mortuary rituals, and mound construction. Over the past decade, archaeologists have learned that some of these sites began as “vacant” ceremonial centers that lacked residential populations and featured cemeteries and wooden structures at the future locations of mounds. This presentation will review features associated with wooden structures that preceded mound construction and village settlement at several sites in the Big Bend region of Florida and will highlight results of recent excavations at the Spring Warrior Complex (8TA154). Documentation of 13 posthole features near the platform mound at Spring Warrior revealed a portion of a large fourth century CE structure that included several exceptionally deep posts and oyster shell chinking evidently used for structural support. By comparing these attributes to other Woodland buildings, we ascertain possible structure functions and consider their relevance to the origins of civic-ceremonial centers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40033.0