Old Stories and New Discoveries

A First Floridian Series sponsored by the Aucilla Research Institute, Inc. held in Monticello, Florida at the Historic Monticello Opera House October 4th and 5th of 2019. Click on speakers below to watch their video presentation.
  • Adam M. Burke
  • Allen Nobles
  • Dr. Andrew Frank
  • Andy Hemmings
  • Dr. Logan Kistler
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Refining Florida’s Chert Quarry Clusters: New Methods, New Research, and New Results through Geochemical Approaches to Chert Provenance Toolstone quality and availability represent the first limiting factors in lithic technological industries, and determining toolstone provenance can shed light on past human mobility patterns and raw-material use. Despite the ubiquity and variation of chert resources across Florida, past research has largely focused on Ocala and Tampa cherts in the central part of the state, leaving other areas of Florida understudied. 
Chert provenance studies in Florida rely heavily on petrographic and paleontological methods, but recent research has suggested that geochemical approaches may provide a valuable proxy method to compliment the traditional methods of provenance. This presentation will address preliminary results from ongoing geological and archaeological research focused on determining the efficacy of geochemical methods for characterizing Florida cherts. Descriptions of regional and local variation in microfossil content and trace-elemental consistencies in Suwannee chert, particularly from the Wacissa quarry cluster in northwest Florida, will be presented. These data will be used in conjunction with the traditional methods of chert provenance applied in Florida to present a holistic and replicable approach to chert characterization. Results and subsequent methodological contributions will be discussed within the broader Florida lithic landscape in concordance with a new wave of chert provenance research in the greater Southeast.
Modern Techniques and Technologies in Surveying While the underlying principles of measurement and mapping are still the same today they were in the past, surveying tools and techniques have changed rapidly in the past few years. The advancement of new technology means surveyors can now take measurements and report data with increased speed, accuracy and formats they were not possible before. This presentation will cover how these new systems affect surveying and provide an overview of what can be done with the latest technology. The class will also touch on systems like LiDAR, laser scanning, drones, AI, photographic surveying and viewing systems.
Indigenous Seminoles: ​Connecting Florida’s Modern Indians with the Time Before Memory This paper extends the history of the Seminoles, deeper into the historical record by reexamining the coalescence of the Seminole its connections to the Calusa, Tequesta, Ais, Apalachee, and other Indians of sixteenth and seventeenth century Florida. Rather than treating ancient Florida and modern Florida as two distinctive phases, many scholars now emphasize a long continuous history of Indigenous communities. This approach contrasts sharply with earlier academic works that tended to treat Seminoles as
“migrants” and “newcomers” who “broke off” from the Creeks in Georgia then moved into an emptied Florida. This argument supports and draws inspiration from the oral traditions Modern Seminoles and Miccosukees, two groups that also acknowledge that their lineages extend into Creek society and deep into the Native South more generally.
What have the Bones to say? Vertebrate Remains from Aucilla & Wakulla River Paleoindian Sites An incredible array of Terminal Pleistocene vertebrate remains have been recovered at numerous underwater Paleoindian loci within the Aucilla-Wacissa and St. Marks-Wakulla River drainages over nearly 200 years. Their importance to the development of American Paleontology and the human inhabitants of this landscape at the very end of the Pleistocene are discussed with special emphasis on how all of these finds are improving our understanding of what specific taxa were available to the earliest human arrivals, and how these early people interacted with them.
Plant genetics in prehistory and the human connection Relatively new to researchers is an understanding of paleo-genetics and its implications for understanding past human lifeways. This presentation will explore some of the discoveries that have taken place and the promise for research into the future.
  • Dr. Willet Boyer
  • Dr. Jeff Mitchem
  • Jessica Cook Hale
  • Glen Doran
  • Jim Dunbar
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New Windows Into the Past: OSL Ceramics Dating and pXRF Studies of Protohistoric and Early Contact Sites From the Eastern Fort Walton Cultural Area Finding protohistoric and early contact sites in Florida and the greater Southeast has long been a goal of historical archaeologists. New techniques for dating ceramics using OSL, in conjunction with pXRF studies of ceramic paste composition, provide more precise dates for site occupation as well as a better understanding of where ceramics were made. This paper will discuss the results of archaeological study of sites on the Wakulla River and
​nearby, in conjunction with OSL and pXRF study of the ceramic collections from the sites. It will be argued that these techniques provide a more precise date range for the sites’ occupation, and a means of understanding certain cultural practices during the later precontact and early contact periods.
Moore, Sellards, and Simpson: Early Archaeology in the Big Bend of Florida Although a lot of undocumented archaeology has been undertaken in the Big Bend area in the past, the most significant early work (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) was carried out by three men: Clarence B. Moore, Elias H. Sellards, and J. Clarence Simpson. These researchers brought some professionalism to the work, and made efforts to disseminate the results of their excavations and other studies. They also ensured that archaeological collections were deposited in museum collections where
​they would be curated and available for study by other researchers. None of them had professional training in archaeology, but they nevertheless made lasting contributions to our knowledge of the region.
A tale told…signifying nothing Submerged prehistoric archaeology by its nature depends intensively on natural science methods, particularly where topics such as submerged site formation processes are concerned. As such, it offers potential to advance the state of the art in both methodology and interpretation but must be applied with due care. I present here a case study that demonstrates this concern. In the search for a non-destructive, cost-effective method to “fingerprint” geochemical signatures in lithic corrosion created by submerged contexts, limitations in the methods were
encountered. Results show promise for lithic studies in this discipline but underscore the need for critical interpretive methods. In addition to critiquing the method, I will offer suggestions for future approaches that may better accomplish study goals.
Archaeology in the wetlands is spectacular Archaeologists can still be surprised by finds, so me of which can be many thousands of years old. We have the basic prehistoric outlines for much of the world but in special preservation situations archaeologists can still be amazed by what Mother Nature has managed to save. This global tour will illustrate some of the things and sites that still have the power to leave us shaking our heads. In extremes of climate, hot, cold or wet even the most delicate organics can survive. In typical ‘normal terrestrial sites’ stone and ceramics dominate. 
​The reality is that over 90% of all people’s material culture is organic. These ‘unusual’ preservation contexts remind us the past may not disappear, we just have to know where to look and how to handle them once we find them.
A Puzzle in Time: The Wakulla Lodge Site another North Florida Pre-Clovis Site Archaeological investigation just north of the Wakulla Lodge on high ground overlooking Wakulla Springs has identified a Clovis level and at least two levels below Clovis. Just how old the pre-Clovis levels are remains a mystery. Geoarchaeologist Chris Moore and Mark Brooks have identified several paleo-land surfaces below Clovis, but more importantly the location of a rare earth platinum (Pt) anomaly in the sediment column that marks the Clovis level. The Pt anomaly took place when an environmental shift took 
place from one climate type to another. The late Pleistocene climate state known as the Allerød, a warming interval, ended and gave way to a cooler climate state known as the Younger Dryas in latitudes north of Florida. The Pt anomaly is dated within a ∼21-year span from ∼12,836 to 12,815 cal BP in one study and 12,846 ± 4 in another. At the Wakulla Springs Lodge site, two artifact levels have been identified ~10cm and ~30 cm below the Pt Anomaly. The upper level has yielded a Simpson point and uniface tools while the lower level has yielded biface fragments that are not diagnostic, along with uniface tools. The archaeological significance of the Wakulla pre-Clovis levels will be discussed, including what we know, what we think we know and what we do not know.
  • Joe Knetsch
  • John Worth
  • Dr. Michael Waters
  • Morgan Smith
  • Robert J. Austin
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Surveyors of Old North Florida The discussion will concern the primary surveyors of Florida in the area of Leon, Jefferson and Madison Counties. It will also note the differing surveys of the Florida-Georgia line and the differences thereon. I will discuss the accuracy of these works and those of the surveyor of the era and their relation to the environment of that day. The conditions of the territory at the time of these surveys were greatly different than those we see today. These conditions dictated much about the surveys and how and when they were done.
Exploring the First European Settlement on the Northern Gulf Coast In 1559, a fleet transporting 500 Spanish soldiers and 1,000 other settlers including families, servants, slaves, and some 200 Aztec Indians landed in Pensacola Bay and established the first European settlement on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Designed to be a port from which to traverse the interior Southeast and eventually provide New Spain with direct terrestrial access to the Atlantic Ocean, the Luna Settlement lasted just two years after a hurricane destroyed most of its fleet and food stores just a month 
​after their arrival. The 31-acre site was discovered in 2015, and has been explored since then by the University of West Florida. This paper provides an update of our current understanding of the material culture and spatial layout of this important mid-sixteenth-century Spanish settlement in the Florida panhandle.
Building a New Understanding of the First Americans through Discovery and New Methodologies The field of the first Americans is undergoing rapid change with long-standing beliefs being upended. No longer can it be believed that Clovis were the first people to enter the Americas 13,500 years ago and that their descendants reached the southern tip of South America 800 years later. Instead, new methodologies for preparing samples (especially bone) and better AMS age measurements show that Clovis only ranges from 13,000 to 12,700 years ago. 
​This makes Clovis and the Western Stemmed Tradition of the Intermountain West coeval in time. Sites in the Intermountain West and Texas indicate that stemmed projectile points may predate lanceolate forms in these regions. There is no substitute for field excavation of archaeological sites. This work provides the primary data we use to learn more about the first Americans. The Page-Ladson site, submerged along the Aucilla River, is now the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America at 14,550 years ago. This work demonstrates the need to employ the best practices of geoarchaeology, geochronology, and archaeology. The artifacts, bones, and sediment collected during archaeological excavations lead to additional studies using new technologies. The most important development in the last decade is the ability to reconstruct the genomes of ancient individuals. This has led to a broad understanding of the population history of the first Americans, showing that the first Americans originated in Asia and were south of the ice sheets sometime between 17,500 and 14,600 years ago. In addition, geneticists can extract DNA from sediments and reconstruct the local plant and animal communities and how they changed over time. The bones extracted from archaeological sites, even the fragments, can be identified using protein studies. Dung fungal spores can be extracted from sediments and used to track the extinction of large herbivores at the end of the Pleistocene. Also preserved in the sediments of archaeological sites are isotopes and microscopic particles that allow us to study the hypothesis that a comet struck the earth at 12,900 years ago. In short, we can do a lot more at archaeological sites today then we could have done even ten years ago. These new methods are transforming the field of archaeology, and have been especially important to developing a new understanding of the first Americans.
Enough Guesting: What Does the Silver River Say About The First Floridians? In several ways, the Guest Mammoth site in the Silver River of Central Florida is one of the oldest stories of underwater precontact archaeology in the Americas. The Guest Mammoth site was the first submerged precontact site in the Americas to be professionally excavated in 1973, one of the first megafauna exploitation sites reported in the southeastern United States, and was the foci of the first submerged prehistoric archaeology field school ever conducted. The original excavations of the site produced 
​intriguing evidence of humans interacting with Ice Age megafauna, including a projectile point and stone tool production debris recovered in direct association with the remains of three Columbian Mammoths. Yet, despite their pioneering efforts (or perhaps because of them), the excavators of the Guest Mammoth site were met with disbelief over their findings. The Guest Mammoth site was largely forgotten and for the next 41 years, all traces of this once groundbreaking research were slowly buried under the cool, clear waters of the Silver River. In 2014, research was renewed at the Guest Mammoth site by archaeologists with the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. The purpose of this work is to re-examine the Guest Mammoth site, taking advantage of new ideas and new technology, and determine whether or not this old story deserves a retelling. This talk presents exciting new geological, chronological, and archaeological evidence from excavations at the site in 2017. New research demonstrates that the Guest Mammoth site may yet play an important role in the story of Florida's earliest inhabitants.
The Quarry Cluster Approach to Chert Provenance Studies The Quarry Cluster concept was first developed in the early 1980s as a way to visually assign lithic artifacts to geographic localities where chert outcrops share similar geological characteristics. It has been used in Florida nearly 40 years and has proven to be a robust method for determining chert provenance. In this presentation, I review the concept and how it has been used (and abused), discuss refinements and improvements, and provide some examples of the method’s use in addressing archaeological research questions.
  • Rochelle Marrinan
  • Susan Goodhope
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The Franciscan-Indian Missions of Northwest Florida In the mid-to-late seventeenth century, Jefferson and Leon counties had a dense array of Franciscan-Indian missions. Beginning in the early 1980s, several long-term projects have investigated some of these mission sites. This presentation examines our understanding of the mission system at the beginning of these projects, considers what we have learned, and proposes goals for future investigations.
Detection Dogs in Searches This presentation will consist of a discussion of the use of Human Remains Detection Dogs in Archaeological Searches.