Garden Patch Archeological Site (8Di4) | |
Location | Dixie County, Florida |
---|---|
Nearest city | Horseshoe Beach |
Coordinates | 29°26′N83°17′W / 29.44°N 83.29°W |
Area | 21 acres (8.5 ha) |
NRHP reference No. | 91000454 [1] |
Added to NRHP | April 25, 1991 |
The Garden Patch is a Middle Woodland archaeological site in Horseshoe Cove, near Horseshoe Beach, Florida, off County Road 351. For a major part of its occupation, the site was a ceremonial center associated with the Swift Creek and Weeden Island cultures. On April 25, 1991, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Garden Patch is sixteen kilometers (ten miles) north of the mouth of the Suwannee River, and two km (1.2 mi) from the Gulf of Mexico, near the western end of Horseshoe Cove, a slight indentation in the Big Bend Coast on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The Big Bend Coast has a very shallow slope, with a thin layer of soil, primarily sand, over limestone. It consists of fresh-water swamps and ponds, salt-water marshes and ponds, tidal flats and tidal creeks. Dunes that formed on slightly raised spots in the underlying limestone during the late Pleistocene emerge as islands along the coast and support coastal hammocks inland. Sea level rise in the last few thousand years has transformed old dunes that were inland into islands. [2] [3] [4]
Seventeen archaeological sites adjacent to the western half of Horseshoe Cove (some 36 square kilometres (14 sq mi) in area) have been identified. The history of those sites appear to be related to the rise of Garden Patch as a ceremonial center. The western Horseshoe Cove is surrounded by a 6-to-12-kilometre (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide area in which no archaeological sites have been found. [5]
Two islands in Horseshoe Cove, Butler Island, and Bird Island, have archaeological sites related to Garden Patch. The sites on Butler and Bird islands were originally on the mainland, but a rise in sea level cut them off from the mainland. The site on Bird Island was occupied 2480–2290 BC, 360–170 BC, and, after the site had become an island, 810–980. Butler Island was occupied 170 BC – AD 5 and, after the site had become an island, 885–1215. Garden Patch was occupied 25–120 AD and 240–980. [6] The first occupation of the Garden Patch, 25–120 AD, is interpreted as a homestead. Starting around 240, a new occupation of the site resulted in the construction of mounds, marking Garden Patch as a ceremonial center, contemporary with the development of ceremonial centers at Crystal River and Shell Mound (near Cedar Key). The ceremonial center continued in use for about three centuries, and then was abandoned. Later, a previously unused area next to the ceremonial center was occupied for a couple of centuries. [7]
Clarence Bloomfield Moore investigated three mounds "near Horseshoe Point" in 1902. Wallis and McFadden identify those mounds with mounds VII, V, and VI at the Garden Patch site. Moore excavated some burials and a few artifacts from Mound V. A surface collection at the site was conducted in 1948. Test excavations of the site were conducted in the 1970s by archaeology students. Starting in 2010, the site was mapped and additional excavations conducted. [8]
The Garden Patch site consists of six mounds, three midden areas, and a pond on an ancient dune. The mounds range from less than one meter to a little more than 2.5 meters in height. The mounds and midden areas form a "horseshoe-shaped ring" surrounding a central plaza with little or no artifacts or refuse. Such "rings" are commonly found in ceremonial centers of the Middle Woodland period in northern Florida and southern Georgia. [9] [10]
Mound IV was originally believed to be a human constructed mound, but investigation revealed it was natural. It was occupied for several centuries starting from early in the history of the site. Wallis and McFadden speculate that Garden Patch was chosen as a village site because of the presence of Mound IV, in association with the pond and other natural mounds that were later artificially raised with shell and/or sand deposits. Occupation of Mound IV appears to have been most extensive in the 4th century. [11]
Mound V has received attention from archaeologists since Moore dug in it in 1902. The mound started as a low natural mound. It was used for some burials, and a structure that may have been a charnel house was placed on it. The mound was covered with a 1.5 meter thick layer of oyster shells in or around the 4th century. A sand cap was added to the mound later. Wallis and McFadden compare that sequence to the construction of Mound D at Kolomaki and of Mound C at the McKeithen site. Radiocarbon dates place the construction of Mound V contemporaneous with that of Mound D at Kolomaki and probably earlier than Mound C at McKeithen. Unlike Mound C at McKeithen, but similar to mounds at the nearby Hughes Island Mound and Palmetto Mound sites, burials and artifacts were found in the sand cap of Mound V. [12]
Some pottery sherds found at Garden Patch reveal connections with distant sites. A type of pottery called Swift Creek Complicated Stamped were stamped with carved paddles before being fired. Sherds found at Garden Patch had been stamped with the same paddle as sherds found at Kolomaki and at the Block-Sterns site in Leon County, Florida. [10] [13]
Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park (8LE1) is one of the most important archaeological sites in Florida, the capital of chiefdom and ceremonial center of the Fort Walton Culture inhabited from 1050–1500. The complex originally included seven earthwork mounds, a public plaza and numerous individual village residences.
The Weeden Island cultures are a group of related archaeological cultures that existed during the Late Woodland period of the North American Southeast. The name for this group of cultures was derived from the Weedon Island site in Old Tampa Bay in Pinellas County.
Crystal River State Archaeological Site is a 61-acre (250,000 m2) Florida State Park located on the Crystal River and within the Crystal River Preserve State Park. The park is located two miles (3 km) northwest of the city of Crystal River, on Museum Point off U.S. 19/98.
Key Marco was an archaeological site (8CR48) consisting of a large shell works island next to Marco Island, Florida. A small pond on Key Marco, now known as the "Court of the Pile Dwellers" (8CR49), was excavated in 1896 by the Smithsonian Institution's Pepper-Hearst Expedition, led by Frank Hamilton Cushing. Cushing recovered more than 1,000 wooden artifacts from the pond, the largest number of wooden artifacts from any prehistoric archaeological site in the eastern United States. These artifacts are described as some of the finest prehistoric Native American art in North America. The Key Marco materials are principally divided between the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; and the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. The original pond was completely excavated and refilled. It is now covered by a housing subdivision. Excavations of small parts of the site were also conducted in 1965 and 1995.
Horr's Island is a significant Archaic period archaeological site located on an island in Southwest Florida formerly known as Horr's Island. Horr's Island is on the south side of Marco Island in Collier County, Florida. The site includes four mounds and a shell ring. It has one of the oldest known mound burials in the eastern United States, dating to about 3400 radiocarbon years Before Present (BP). One of the mounds has been dated to as early as 6700 BP. It was the largest known community in the southeastern United States to have been permanently occupied during the Archaic period.
The Swift Creek culture was a Middle Woodland period archaeological culture in the Southeastern Woodlands of North America, dating to around 100-800 CE. It occupied the areas now part of Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In Florida, Swift Creek ceremonial practices and burial complexes are referred to technically as the Yent-Green Point complex. The Swift Creek culture was contemporaneous with and interacted with the Hopewell culture; Swift Creek is often described as "Hopewellian." The type site for the Swift Creek culture was the Swift Creek mound site, which was located in Bibb County, Georgia. The Leake Mounds are another significant Swift Creek Culture site in Georgia.
The Alachua culture is a Late Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north-central Florida, dating from around 600 to 1700. It is found in an area roughly corresponding to present-day Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. It was preceded by the Cades Pond culture, which inhabited approximately the same area.
The Cades Pond culture is defined as a Middle Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north-central Florida, dating from around 100 to 600 CE.
The Fort Walton Mound (8OK6) is an archaeological site located in present-day Fort Walton Beach, Florida, United States. The large platform mound was built about 850 CE by the Pensacola culture, a local form of the Mississippian culture. Because of its significance, the mound was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
The Deptford culture was an archaeological culture in southeastern North America characterized by the appearance of elaborate ceremonial complexes, increasing social and political complexity, mound burial, permanent settlements, population growth, and an increasing reliance on cultigens.
Historic Spanish Point is a 33-acre (13 ha) museum and environmental complex located in Osprey, Florida at 337 North Tamiami Trail. The museum includes an archeological exhibit of a prehistoric shell mound known as a midden, a turn-of-the-century pioneer homestead historic house museum, a citrus packing house, a chapel, boatyard, gardens, and nature trails.
Fort Center is an archaeological site in Glades County, Florida, United States, a few miles northwest of Lake Okeechobee. It was occupied for more than 2,000 years, from 450 BCE until about 1700 CE. The inhabitants of Fort Center may have been cultivating maize centuries before it appeared anywhere else in Florida.
Shell rings are archaeological sites with curved shell middens completely or partially surrounding a clear space. The rings were sited next to estuaries that supported large populations of shellfish, usually oysters. Shell rings have been reported in several countries, including Colombia, Peru, Japan, and the southeastern United States. Archaeologists continue to debate the origins and use of shell rings.
The Manasota culture was an archaeological culture that was practiced on the central Gulf coast of the Florida peninsula from about 500 BCE until about 900, when it developed into the Safety Harbor culture. From about 300 to 700 the Manasota culture adopted the ceremonial ceramics and burial practices of the Weeden Island cultures of northern Florida and adjacent Alabama and Georgia.
The Suwannee Valley culture is defined as a Late Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north Florida, dating from around 750 to European contact. The core area of the culture was found in an area roughly corresponding to present-day Suwannee and southern and central Columbia counties. It was preceded by the McKeithen Weeden Island culture and followed by the Spanish mission period Leon-Jefferson culture.
Morgan Mounds is an important archaeological site of the Coastal Coles Creek culture, built and occupied by Native Americans from 700 to 1000 CE on Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. Of the 45 recorded Coastal Coles Creek sites in the Petite Anse region, it is the only one with ceremonial substructure mounds. These indicate that it was possibly the center of a local chiefdom.
The River Styx archaeological site is the site of a village and burial mound in North Central Florida that was occupied during the development of the Cades Pond culture out of the Deptford culture early in the Current Era (CE).
The Griesmer site (La-3) is located on the Kankakee River in Lake County, Indiana, about a mile southeast of Schneider, in Northwestern Indiana. It is classified as a Prehistoric, multi-component site with Middle Woodland, Late Woodland and Upper Mississippian occupations. The deposits were not stratified, but observation of the types of artifacts present, together with radiocarbon dates, helped to define the sequence of occupations at the site.
The Roberts Island complex is an archaeological site in Citrus County, Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico, dating from the late Woodland period. It is located on an island in the Crystal River midway between the springs at the head of the river and the mouth of the river on the Gulf of Mexico. The site is a geographically separate unit of the Crystal River Archaeological State Park. The site includes three shell mounds and three middens. Two of the mounds may have had stepped sides. The Roberts Island complex was developed as the Crystal River site declined and most other ceremonial sites in the region were abandoned during the 7th or 8th century.