CENTURY: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF CHARLOTTE COUNTY James Abraham is a former journalist who now edits and publishes books. His Book-broker Publishers, which he founded in 2004, has produced or edited more than 500 books in a variety of genres. Abraham is a popular writing coach, critic, and lecturer. A…
THE ANTHROPOGENIC MOVEMENT OF LIGHTNING WHELK DURING THE ARCHAIC: A WELL-TRAVELED MOLLUSK Michelle Calhoun Lightning whelk is a fairly common sight on our southwest Florida, Gulf coast beaches. In fact, eastern Gulf of Mexico lightning whelk population studies show that 82% can be found between Charlotte Harbor and Ten Thousand…
Dive into the legend of the infamous pirate Gasparilla and the lasting impact it’s made on southwest Florida’s coast. While exploring the local origins of the legend, we’ll uncover the historical background of how a “big fish” story captured a railroad tycoon and made its mark on our coast forever….
This presentation will cover a project in Collier County, FL that devised a system for prioritizing cultural sites based on when they are likely to flood due to sea level rise, how vulnerable they are to flooding, and the consequences if the sites are lost. Hopefully this project will start…
FLORIDA ICE AGE (PLEISTOCENE) MAMMALS The sedimentary sequence in Florida began in the Eocene during the Cenozoic period, which is Earth’s current geological era. The Pleistocene era, commonly known as “The Ice Age,” began approximately 2.6 million years ago and lasted until approximately 12,000 years ago, with megafauna, described as…
EMERGENCE OF THE CALUSA KINGDOM When Spaniards first arrived, the Calusa, a fishing people, were the most powerful native society in Florida. We now have evidence from Mound Key of mound-building, monumental architecture, large-scale food processing, watercourt use and construction, and the sixteenth-century Spanish fort and mission of San Antón…
SHARK TEETH FROM OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES AND SURFACE FOUND COLLECTIONS –MORE THAN JUST HOPEWELL Although rare, fossil shark teeth from outside of Ohio have been recovered from Ohio archaeological sites and as surface finds throughout much of the state. The source of these fossil shark teeth has been the subject…
A PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD OF HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT SITES ON SAN SALVADOR ISLAND, BAHAMAS With funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a heritage tourism development project originally scheduled for 2020, was put on hold due to the Covid pandemic. However, with the possibility of funding being withdrawn, six students from the…
UTILIZATION AND SOURCING OF WHELK ARTIFACTS IN NORTH AMERICA The lightning whelk is a sinistral (left)-coiling mollusk which can be found along the North American continental shelf from Cape Cod to the Yucatan peninsula. Whelk have morphological differences in their shells depending on their region of origin: Yucatan, the western…
THE HISTORY AND USE OF THE FLORIDA CABBAGE PALM Miller’s topic will follow the title of his new book, The Palmetto, Histories and Mysteries of the Cabbage Palm. In his discussion, Jono will address some basic questions about our state tree, basically, everything you always wanted to know about our…
FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING AND THE KEY MARCO ATLATLS Florida excavations in 1895 by a pioneering archaeologist produced famous finds of prehistoric art, and an early recognition of a forgotten weapon, the atlatl or spear thrower. We know a lot more about atlatls today, and re-examining Cushing’s finds shows some of…
SPOOKY ARCHAEOLOGY: THE MYTH AND SCIENCE OF THE PAST Archaeologists are depicted as searching for lost cities and mystical artifacts in news reports, television, video games, and in movies like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. This fantastical image has little to do with day-to-day science, yet it is deeply connected…
CALUSA AND SPANISH HISTORIES AT MOUND KEY We welcome Dr. Thompson, to our September 14 Zoom meeting. His topic is of local and familiar interest, the Calusa of Mound Key, Charlotte Harbor, and the bays and estuaries of southwest Florida. In 1566, Pedro de Menéndez de Aviles arrived at the…
PREHISTORIC FOOD RESOURCES IN COASTAL SOUTH FLORIDA Dr. April Watson How do archaeologists investigate the ways people have eaten through time? The study of these leftovers give us a powerful tool for understanding past human behavior. Leftovers such as bones, scales, and shells can help archaeologists explore the ways that…
AMPLIFIED: AFRICAN AMERICAN CEMETERIES IN TAMPA BAY Jeff Moates, Director of the West Central and Central Regional Centers of the Florida Public Archaeology Network April 13, 2021 Zoom Meeting In 2020 groups in the Tampa Bay area began a quest to replace, buildover, and destroyed African American cemeteries. These places…
SARASOTA COUNTY HISTORY As part of our Sarasota County 2021 Centennial Celebration, we welcome historian Dr. Frank Cassell, author of Creating Sarasota County (2017), and Suncoast Empire, Bertha Honore Palmer, Her Family, and the Rise of Sarasota (2019). Frank will recount the dramatic history and tales of the men and…
EXCAVATING ROSEWOOD: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AND HOPE Rosewood was a prosperous African American community hard-won from the swampy hammocks of north Florida. Although the town was destroyed in 1923, the community continued, scattered across the state of Florida and beyond. Now, nearly 100 years after this tragic event the…
A JAR FULL OF LOVE LETTERS AND OTHER ADVENTURES IN TAMPA ARCHAEOLOGY Recent archaeological work in downtown Tampa focused on parts of former Fort Brooke, an important military installation from the Period of Indian Removal in early American Florida. The work uncovered the location of the fort’s lost cemetery, buried…
SHELL TOOL ANALYSIS FROM SNAKE ISLAND New College of Florida undergraduate student and WMS/LSSAS member Michelle Calhoun will be the speaker at our April 14 meeting. Her topic, “A Preliminary Analysis of Columella Tools and Gastropod Hammers from Snake Island, Sarasota County, Florida (8So2336). Snake Island is a small island…
FINDING OVERTOWN – SARASOTA’S FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY Few newcomers to Sarasota County would know that the Rosemary District in Sarasota was once known as Overtown and part of the original plat of the Town of Sarasota in 1885. Beginning in the 1890’s African Americans settled there. It was north…
EVERGLADES ARCHAEOLOGY Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) Assistant Professor, William Locascio, will be the speaker at our February 11 meeting. His topic will cover recent excavations by his FGCU students in the Everglades Agricultural Area. He has shown that the Everglades was inhabited for thousands of years in the Archaic…