Graduation Year
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Anthropology
Major Professor
Nancy Marie White, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Diane Wallman, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Jeffrey Du Vernay, Ph.D.
Keywords
Middle Woodland, burial mound, Swift Creek, early Weeden Island ceramics,, southeastern Native Americans, Green Point
Abstract
This thesis should serve as a comprehensive site report for both Porter’s Bar (8Fr1) and Green Point (8Fr11) mounds in northwest Florida. These prehistoric burial mounds and their associated village shell midden are determined to have been constructed during two different time periods, Middle Woodland and Early Woodland, respectively. This is the first time that all materials and data have been described and compiled for both sites, despite the fact that they were both originally recorded over a century ago and described differently later by multiple researchers.
The mounds served as an important ceremonial center along Apalachicola Bay some 1500 years ago, beginning perhaps during the Early Woodland (1200 B.C. – A.D. 250) and continuing through the Middle Woodland (A.D. 250 – A.D. 650). Evidence indicates an earlier Late Archaic component, and a much later historic nineteenth-century component. People living here probably experienced slightly different coastlines as sea levels fluctuated. The village midden associated with the two mounds extends for nearly 300 meters along the bay shore and has been damaged by sea-level change, while other parts have been borrowed for road material. The mounds have been damaged by looting and residential construction.
All known materials and data from the two sites are presented and compared, including burial styles and associated funerary goods. Ceramic types and tempers indicate that Green Point mound was one of the few built during the Early Woodland known in the region. The same population may have constructed Porter’s Bar during Middle Woodland times, perhaps a century or two later, and included artifacts that are rarely found in the research area. Potential areas of further investigation are noted, but time is limited as the midden will probably be inundated within the next fifty years.
Scholar Commons Citation
Knigge, Kerri, "Porter’s Bar: A Coastal Middle Woodland Burial Mound and Shell Midden in Northwest Florida" (2018). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/7181
