Iconography and Wetsite Archaeology of Floridas Watery Realms

Beginning with Frank Hamilton Cushings famous excavations at Key Marco in 1896, a large and diverse collection of animal carvings, dugout canoes, and other wooden objects has been uncovered from Floridas watery landscapes. Iconography and Wetsite Archaeology of Floridas Watery Realms explores new discoveries and reexamines existing artifacts to reveal the influential role of water in the daily lives of Floridas early inhabitants. Among other topics, contributors compare anthropomorphic wooden carvings such as the Key Marco cat statuette to figures found elsewhere in the Southeast. They use ethnographic data to argue that Newnans Lake was once an intersection between major watersheds and that the more than 100 canoes unearthed there likely facilitated travel throughout the peninsula. Other sites discussed include Fort Center, Chassahowitzka Springs, Weedon Island Preserve, Pineland, and Hontoon Island. Essays address the challenges of excavating and preserving perishable artifacts from waterlogged sites, especially those in saltwater environments, and highlight the value of revisiting museum collections to ask new questions and employ new analytical techniques. This volume demonstrates that, despite the difficulties faced by archaeologists working with saturated deposits, these sites are vital for understanding Floridas prehistory. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series