Paleo-Indians
The work of anthropologist Louis Leakey turns the tables on our usual concepts of New World and Old. Worked stones in the Moiave Desert would indicate human occupation in North America 200,000 years ago, among the earliest anywhere in the world. By conventional chronology, however, the Paleo-lndians arrived in Florida some 12 to 15,000 years ago, where the first traces of human habitation date from roughly 2000 BC. By 600 BC, the mound-builders of the Ohio Valley were active, first the Adenans and then the Hopewellians. After 1000 AD, the moundbuilding culture of the lower Mississippi Valley became the most advanced north of Mexico. Through trade, the moundbuilding culture reached Florida. The degree of cultural influence from Central and South America is being debated: a glance at a navigation chart nevertheless shows several favourable ocean currents leading directly from these regions to the Florida west coast.
By the time of European contact, there were many tribes living in Florida, among which were the Apalachee, the Tocobaga, the Tequesta, the Calusa, and the Mayaimi, who had descended from Muscogean speakers of present-day Georgia and Alabama. The Timucuans, of different linguistic stock, had migrated from the Central Amazon region around 2000 BC. The constructions that the aboriginal Floridians have left include wooden sculpture of outstanding quality, hundreds of pyramid mounds, dozens of artificial islands, straight line canals cut for miles through the lowlands, standing stones, mysterious circular earthworks, and even an effigy island.
Many modern Floridians are living on Indian mounds without realizing it. Despite increasing awareness of the richness of pre-Columbian civilizations in North America, these mounds have been disappearing during the past century at an alarming rate. Some have been destroyed by treasure hunters looking for pirate gold. Others have been destroyed to provide materials to lay in caravan parks1. And while people who are actively interested in preserving and honouring Native American sites tend to favour the more famous ones, located in such areas as the Southwest, Ohio, and Vermont, those who would tour Florida for the same purpose are few and far between.
Earthworks
In the Lake Okeechobee region of central Florida are a group of mysterious earthworks. Six have been identified in that area, and two more on the east coast near the Miami River, but there were probably more. Their traces are easily visible on aerial photographs, but quite faint seen from the ground. They comprise three types of features: linear ridges, circularlinear earthworks, and circular ditches that are often associated with embankments.
The circular ditches vary in diameter from about 200 to 1200 feet. The only one to have been extensively examined is the Fort Center Circle. Based on Carbon 14 dates from it, the circular earthworks have been dated to 1000-450 BC, almost 1000 years earlier than the other two classes of earthwork. The circles have been interpreted as drainage ditches around zones reserved for rnaize cultivation. The South Florida Indians, however, are not supposed to have practised agriculture. It is argued that the earthworks were ceremonial because of their association with mounds and with related ponds that were repeatedly located in certain positions.
The West Okeechobee Circle is unique in that it has two concentric circles. These are associated with two sets of linear ridges. The ridges run in double parallel lines going east and south from the outer circle. The eastern ridges extend about 2400 feet, by far the longest observed by state archaeologist Robert S. Carr. The southern set is about 1500 feet long. Carr points out that, interestingly, the lines go straight through a variety of environments: grassy savannahs, ponds, and even an upland hammock2.
It is notable that the placename Miami recurs in the state of Ohio as the Miami River and, somewhat confusingly, as the name of a university in Ohio. The meaning of the word is commonly taken to mean something like 'great water'. The Maiami people of Florida inhabited the central part of the state around the huge Lake Okeechobee. The Miami River, where there were some short Indian canals, empties in the modern city of Miami.
Crystal River
The Crystal River Mounds are a 14-acre six-mound ceremonial complex, with two . standing stones, located on a bend by the mouth of the Crystal River about 80 miles northwest of Orlando. The complex is believed to have been started about 200 BC and in use until about 1400 ADroads in a mobile home park, but the mound has since been restored. The view from the summit is splendid, overlooking the river loop both upstream and down. The Crystal River area is famous among skin-divers, who travel from afar to observe the many manatees, or sea-cows, that come there to breed. The second temple mound is longer and flatter, stretching 235 feet, with a ramp, and is surrounded on three sides by a moat-like earthwork. The mound remains virtually intact and unrestored, which may account for its special atmosphere. As many as 300 burials may occupy it. Growing on it , when it was rather suddenly abandoned before European contact. For one and a half millenia it was an imposing ceremonial centre and a major necropolis. Evidence of several culture periods has been found within it. Today it is one of the best preserved mound complexes in the entire US. It is maintained as a National Historical Landmark with well-informed rangers and a small museum. I found one of the mounds, which is virtually unexcavated, to be a place of great spirit and inspiration.
The main temple mound is a flat-topped pyramidal mound of earth and midden material, now restored to a height of 30 feet, with a ramp, and dated to about 600 AD. It is assumed to have served as a high platform base for a temple. Much of its oyster shell content was removed to lay are a number of live-oak trees covered with Spanish moss. This is a greygreen trailing plant, which hangs from the branches in long, thin veils, like silken ghosts draped in tattered cloaks. It was used by some peoples to make skirts for the women. A meditation on this mound is worth a journey of many miles.
The major burial mound, made of white sand and surrounded by an earthwork ridge, contained as many as 1,000 burials. The copper earrings accompanying some of the burials show trade exchange with the Ohio River area. This mound was extensively excavated by Clarence B. Moore around the turn of the 20th century. He was a Chicagoan who travelled through Florida on a houseboat investigating Indian sites. His methods were destructive, but his careful records form the basis of modern studies in Florida archaeology.
The two standing stones are the most enigmatic features of the Crystal River site. The erection of these approximately five-foot limestone stelae was dated by archaeologist Ripley P. Bullen to 440 AD. One, carved with the likeness of a human head, is the only engraved stela in Eastern North America. Remains of animal bones, charcoal, and chert chips were excavated from near its base. Controversy surrounds these stones. One reason is that the petroglyph has recently been vandalized: portions of a shoulder and arm have been added to the presumed figure of a human face. According to archaeologist Clark Hardman Jr., the Crystal River site is a giant calendar of sand, shell, and stone, with the function of marking solstices, equinoxes, and north-south star alignments. The stelae would be important components in the system and the inscribed face that of a sun god who faces the summer solstice sunrise3. Astronomer Ray A. Williamson, assessing Hardmants archaeoastronomy, considers his work on, Crystal River partly convincing and encourages further investigation.
Orientation of Temple Mounds
Around Tampa Bay are five impressive platform or temple mounds attributed to the Tocobaga Indians of the Safety Harbor period (800 - 1500 AD). Originally there were probably 15 or 20 of these steep-sided, truncated pyramids around the bay. All of them lay within a few hundred yards of tidal waters, five by the mouths of major rivers near the sites of villages. All but two were made of gradually built-up layers of sand and compacted varieties of shell up to 20 feet high. Most had ramps and were situated either north or east of a plaza, which may have been used for games. The mounds' varying sizes suggest a variety of functions, but they do not appear to have been funerary, as very few burials have been found in or near them.
Six mounds were oriented to the cardinal directions. Four others deviated from cardinal alignment by 20 degrees or less. The ramps of four other temple mounds were aligned either north-south or east-west, which suggests that their associated mounds were oriented to the cardinal directions. The four largest mounds are located at 15-18 mile intervals along the bay.
The building style of these platform mounds resembled that of the Mississippians, whose additions of new layers to their mounds had ceremonial significance: new layers were added as the fire of the old year was extinguished and the new fire kindled and at the death of important individuals4 .
The Calusas
In the southern part of the peninsula were the Calusas, whose culture peaked from around 500 to 1000 AD, when most of the largest constructions on the west coast of Florida were made. This period coincides roughly with the peak of the Mayan civilization. Ripley Bullen states that there was contact around 500 AD between the Crystal River people and travellers from Veracruz or Yucatan. The Calusa people, whose terri tory was south and west of Lake Okeechobee, are of particular interest to anthropologists because they developed an intricate, highly organized society but were non agricultural. They lived off the bounty of the sea, travelling by canoe to Cuba and the Bahamas. Their chief married his sister and had other wives as well, and he commanded fifty tributary towns, with a trade and communications network that covered hundreds of miles. The Calusas were thriving at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th centuy. Their first encounter with the Europeans was in the person of Ponce de Leon, an explorer who had accompanied Columbus to the West Indies on his second voyage. Having searched for gold, slaves, and the fabulous spring of eternal youth in the Bahamas, de Leon landed in April 1513 on the shores of a place which he named Florida for the Eastertime Feast of Flowers. His men engaged in two days of intense fighting with Calusa warriors, during which he received an arrow wound that never healed and ultimately caused his death5.
Calusa Art
The Calusas, who carved beautiful canoes, created some extraordinarily powerful wood sculpture. Only a few pieces remain. The Calusa masterpiece is of a Florida panther, an animal which is now almost extinct. The sculpture is well preserved, having been saturated with varnish or sacrificial animal fat and found among warrior and hunter accoutrements at Key Marco. The distinctive three-forked eye marking denotes predatory creatures and god-animal beings. This marking is duplicated in certain images from the Georgia Etowah mounds, a major center of the Southern Cult ceremonial complex, which influenced the Calusas for some time. Though only 6 or 7 inches high, it has the dignity of a colossus6.
Footnotes
1. Indian Mounds You Can Visit, I. Mac Perry, Great Outdoors Publishing Co., St. Petersburg, FL., 1993.
2. 'Prehistoric Circular Earthworks in South Florida', Robert S. Carr, The Florida Anthropotogist, Vol. 38, No. 4, Dec. 1985.
3. Florida Archeology, Number 8, 1995, Florida Bureau of Archeological Research, 'Crystal River: A Ceremonial Mound Center on the Florida Gulf Coast', Brent R. Weisman.
4. 'Temple Mounds of the Tampa Bay Area', George M. Luer and Marion M. Almy, The Florida Anthropologist, Florida Anthropological Society, Inc., Vol. 34, No. 3, Sept. 1981.
5. 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Random House, 1995, pp. 131-134.
6. South Florida's Vanished People, Byron D. Voegelin, Island Press, Fort Myers, FL, 1977.