The CGCAS monthly lectures have moved to a digital format. We are using the Zoom platform. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Zoom, here are PDF Instructions to help you set up Zoom and participate in the lecture. Please follow the steps prior to the meeting to be ready to view the lecture. The registration link will be provided with the Lecture Announcement or on our Facebook Event Page.  The CGCAS Archaeology Lecture series is sponsored by the Alliance for Weedon Island Archaeological Research and Education (AWIARE).

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Four Years and Two Shipwrecks in LaSoye Bay, Dominica

Marie Meranda
Doctoral Candidate (Anthropology), University of South Florida

Maritime archaeology work began in LaSoye Bay in 2019 as a dissertation project to complement research on a settlement discovered on LaSoye’s shore during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2016. Over years of archaeological research, we have determined that the bay is the site of an underwater and above-ground harbor that has been used for centuries. Onshore structures include a seawall, bollard (for docking ships), and an abandoned warehouse. Two sites within the bay have been identified as shipwrecks, hinting that seafaring the rough Atlantic waters of Dominica was not uncommon despite LaSoye’s small size. Such features are reminiscent of past economies reliant principally on the sea for trade, transportation, and migration. Underwater debris such as anchors, ballast stones, bottles, pottery fragments, pipe stems, and metal support the argument that the bay was a site of both fishing and extra-local trade. Here, I will discuss the survey techniques that led to these discoveries and place these underwater features and artifacts in Dominican and larger Caribbean contexts.

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OCTOBER 12, 2023 at 7PM

Climate Change and Cultural Sites in Florida

Rachael Kangas, M.A.
Director of the West Central and Central Regions, Florida Public Archaeology Network

How do we protect cemeteries, historic buildings, and archaeological sites that are threatened by climate change in Florida? How is it decided which sites get attention and which do not? Join the Central Gulf Coast Archaeological Society in collaboration with the Alliance for Weedon Island Archaeological Research and Education for a special presentation of how archaeologists are currently answering these questions, what significant threats are observed in Florida, and how the public can help!

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SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 at 7PM via ZOOM

Broad-scale Excavations at Sarabay: Piecing Together the Layout of a Timucuan Town 

Keith Ashley, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Florida

This past summer (2023) the University of North Florida (UNF) completed its fourth consecutive field school in what we believe is the center of the Mocama community of Sarabay. In addition to more than 15,000 Indigenous sherds, UNF students have recovered Spanish olive jar and majolica plate fragments along with artifacts depicting Catholic imagery. Among the most tantalizing finds is a posthole alignment suggestive of an Indigenous building, some 60-70 feet in diameter. Archaeological, archival, and cartographic data suggest excavations have exposed an area dating to 1580-1620s. This presentation provides a very up-to-date overview of UNF excavations at Sarabay.

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