Shell Midden Landscapes of the Western Atchafalaya Basin Dr. Jayur Madhusudan Mehta, Associate Professor in Anthropology, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Florida State University Monumental shell works, shell middens, and earthen mounds are found throughout the interior of the Atchafalaya Basin and just inland from the margins of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Many of…
North America’s First Pots: Insights into Stallings Culture and Cuisine Dr. Emily Bartz, Arkansas Archeological Survey and the University of Arkansas At the intersection of clay, cuisine, and culture, pottery offers profound insights into ancient communities. In this talk, Dr. Emily Bartz explores the cultural history of the Stallings culture of the Savannah River valley,…
The Long Human History of Tampa Bay Dr. Evan Bennett People have lived in the Tampa Bay area for far longer than there has been a bay. Much of the record of human life around the bay has been left in mounds and middens or etched on its shorelines. Too often, though, in the history…
Mapping the American Sea: A Cartographic History of the Gulf of Mexico Rodney Kite-Powell, Director of the Touchton Map Library, Tampa Bay History Center America’s history has been largely written as an inevitable march from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, an unstoppable manifest destiny starting with the English colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth,…
The Yearling is one of the nation’s most beloved books. Set in a rapidly disappearing rural Florida, the captivating story of young Jody Baxter and his beloved pet fawn Flag is as powerful today as when it was published in 1938. However, few who read Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Pulitzer prize-winning novel are aware of the story’s historical roots.
In the 1700s, as Florida’s Indigenous tribes were displaced, the forebears of the Miccosukee and Seminole descended along the southwestern Gulf Coast.
The Gamble Plantation sits on the banks of the Manatee River in Ellenton Florida and has been home to a wide variety of occupants since its construction in 1844. Archaeological research at the site has recovered material culture spanning the entire occupation of the estate.
