New England Antiquities Research Association

 

Calusa Built Round Homes

Reprinted from the Florida News Press

by Kevin Lollar

 

 

December 23, 2003

 

Dig reveals five post holes, evidence of housing pattern

An archaeologist working at the Pineland archaeological site thinks he has uncovered the first evidence in Southwest Florida of how local American Indians built houses 1,500 years ago.

A series of five post holes on what is now known as Surf Clam Ridge form an obvious arc, indicating that the structure was round.

John Worth, coordinator of the Randell Research Center, and eight volunteers spent Thursday digging at the site in an attempt to uncover the five to seven other post holes that would prove the structure was circular.

“No one has ever identified a complete house pattern for this area,” Worth said. “This is the first opportunity to, in a definitive way, address the questions of how these folks lived.”

The structure dates back to the late fifth century, 300 years before Southwest Florida’s natives started building shell mounds.

Surf Clam Ridge, which rises about 5 feet above sea level, is hundreds of yards from Pine Island Sound, whereas the shell mounds, which marked a major Calusa population center, are closer to the water.

“This is the early past of Pineland,” Worth said. “After 600 A.D., Pineland contracted to just the shoreline area. By the 700s, shell mounds began to rise.”

So far, the structure, built by the ancestors of the Calusa, seems to be about 4.5 meters (almost 15 feet) in diameter; various cultures in the Southeastern United States built round houses of about the same size during this time period.

No one knows exactly what the structure would have looked like, even if the structure was round.

“It had poles, probably pine, with palm thatch,” Worth said. “Beyond that, we don’t have a lot of information. Were they structures like Seminole chickees? We can’t answer that yet.”

Unfortunately, Worth and the volunteers couldn’t answer the question of the structure’s shape Thursday because the dig was sidetracked by an interesting feature on what was probably the house floor.

Within a large dark area of ash that might have been a hearth, volunteers found charred fish, bird and deer bones.

Just outside the ash area, Worth exposed a large section of a broken bowl.

In archaeology, an artifact means nothing except in context with other artifacts. A shell hammer by itself says nothing, but a shell hammer found with other shell hammers, ladles, axes and other tools might indicate a tool-making area.

As the broken bowl and animal bones began popping up in and around the ash area, volunteer Marty Kendall, 56, an artist living in St. James City, put forth a theory.

“This is seriously the kitchen — I ain’t kidding,” she said. “We’re going to bring up a microwave in a minute.”

At an archaeological site, some people do the slow, meticulous digging and put all but the obviously important artifacts into buckets. The contents of the buckets then are sifted for artifacts and food remains.

Volunteer Denege Patterson, 55, of Bokeelia was one of the sifters Thursday.

“We’re finding a lot of large pieces of bone that appear to be burnt,” she said. “I’ve got deer bone, shark vertebrae, bird bone, a drum jaw. I want to live with his mama: She was probably a pretty good cook.”

At the end of the day, though, the team hadn’t gotten to the other possible post holes.

“We got bogged down by this beautiful burned area,” Worth said. “So we don’t have an answer. But you can’t rush it, and to be bogged down by these kinds of details is a pleasure.”

For Kendall, the whole process is a pleasure.

“There’s something very special about sitting in these people’s home,” she said. “You can almost feel their presence. As an artist, to be able to touch the pottery and tools that they made with their hands is a trip.

“It’s very educational and just plain old fun.”

 

All Copyrights © are acknowledged. 

Material reproduced here is for educational and research purposes only.