History

Archaeology in Florida

Introduction

Archaeology is considered as the study of the people's past, along with the artifacts they have left behind them as well as the environment where they use to live. The field of archaeology aims to conduct surveys, excavate and eventually analyze the data collected in order to develop a deeper learning about the past. Florida has been one of the most active sites of archaeology with a substantial contribution to the field. A recent event highlights this statement as reported by CNN in 2010; an archaeologist of the University of Florida managed to find bones in North East Florida. These were actually human remains and were estimated to be around five to seven hundred years old. These were found in an excavation, which took place in Glen Springs Recreation Area in Ocala National Forest. This site was situated around thirty miles from Palatka.

Discussion

There have been numerous artifacts collected by the archaeologists and Florida is known to possess a rich culture in the past. The systematic artifact collections have been the most wide-ranging in the South Florida. One of the Archaeologists named Frank Hamilton found numerous items in the area in his two year dig. His collection is widely observed and praised. The excavated collections of Florida were the most famous ones as they required the use of systematic recovery skills. There are various sites in Florida which have been the focus for collecting items. Amongst these is the Abraham's Old Town, which is also known as Pilaklikaha. It is a multicomponent site in the Sumter County. The site further includes a pottery period occupation (Pasco and Sand Tempered Plain) and even the components of pre-pottery period. The site is situated in a town where Black Indians used to reside back in the 1800s. The collection of the site includes glass beads, fragments of trade pipe, lithic ceramics, bricks, bottle glass, metal fragments as well as bottle glasses.

These were founded mainly in Terry Weik's excavations in 1998 to 2001. In the pre-history project Aucilla River, the collection mainly included prehistoric bones, lithic, mammoth ivory tools, historic materials, ceramics, and remains of the plants as well as Holocene and Pleistocene fossils. Other items included fossilized bones of Pleistocene animals, carved ivory shafts, along with numerous others. Another site named Bolen Bluff is a site which is situated at the south of Paynes Prairie. The excavation of the site was done in 1949 by Ripley Bullen. The items recovered included Bolen, Suwannee, Pinellas points, Arredondo, Stone adzes, hoes, crapes as well as drills. The period reflected a greater historic culture of pottery types.

In a site near North Florida, named as De Soto, a survey was conducted in the 1986 and lasted up to the year of 1991. In this survey, the early historical items of Spanish-Indian heritage were discovered by archaeologists. Florida is known to be rich in archaeological sites and items discovered. There have been numerous surveys conducted in different parts of the region and various findings have been ...