Key Marco
Encyclopedia
Key Marco was an archaeological
site on Marco Island
, Florida
, which was excavated in 1896 by Frank Hamilton Cushing
of the Smithsonian Institution
. Cushing recovered more than 1,000 wooden artifact
s from the Key Marco site, 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 site was completely excavated and refilled. It is covered by the development of a housing subdivision.
In 1995 the Collier County Historical Society commissioned an archeological salvage project on an undeveloped portion of Key Marco, supervised by archeologists Randolph J. Widmer and Rebecca Storey. They hoped to be able to establish more context for the archeological site excavated by Cushing. Evidence was found of three platform mound
stages, with large houses built on pilings.
pond
, covering less than an acre
. The conditions in the muck preserved the wood and other objects, including those made with bone, fiber, gum
, rawhide and gut
. Objects of stone, shell and pottery were also found in the pond.
A great variety of artifacts were found in the pond, including bowls, mortars and pestles
, spears, atlatl
s, cords, ropes, nets, net floats, fishhooks, carved clubs, wooden tablets and plaques, wood ear spools, realistically carved animal heads, carved and painted masks, and a carved wooden feline/human figure (the so-called "Key Marco cat"). Many of the wooden objects, besides the masks, had been painted. The colors were still vivid when the objects were first removed from the muck. The artifacts were very well preserved due to being buried in the wet conditions.
At the time Key Marco was excavated, techniques for preserving wood and other fragile materials removed from the muck had not been developed. The colors on the painted objects quickly faded, and many objects quickly deteriorated. But, a photographer with the excavation party recorded all the objects soon after they were removed from the pond, thus preserving evidence of their appearance. Watercolors were also prepared by Wells M. Sawyer showing the colors of the painted objects.
Dating the Key Marco finds has been a problem. Because of the limited knowledge of the archeological discipline at the time, no record of the stratification
of the objects was kept. They cannot be placed in sequence. There is no sign of Europe
an trade goods or influence in the finds. Radiocarbon dating
did not exist at the time of excavation. Radiocarbon dating
of objects which have been handled and stored away from their original environment for long periods may not be reliable. In the 1960s an attempt to radiocarbon date some objects yielded a date of 1670 AD. A second attempt in 1975 using five different objects yielded dates from 55 AD to 850 AD.
Marco Island was occupied by the Muspa tribe, corresponding to the Ten Thousand Islands
district of the Glades culture
as defined in archeology. Around 1300 AD, pottery and artifact styles in the Muspa area changed to become very similar to those of the Calusa
tribe to the north, indicating a close alliance with or absorption by the Calusa.
In 1995 the Collier County Historical Society arranged for an archeological salvage operation on an undeveloped portion of the Key Marco housing site. There were two mounds on this portion of the site. The project was led by archeologists Randolph J. Widmer and Rebecca Storey, who trained and led a volunteer labor effort, in association with related organizations. A stratigraphic analysis found 55 discrete layers, indicated by changes in shell and sand mixture. They found evidence of numerous postholes, which indicated a large structure built on pilings to raise it above the surface of the mound. They found additional evidence of early Glades culture, mostly through pottery remains.
as "Key Marco". Horr's Island was the location of an independently significant archaeological site. It had the oldest indigenous burial mound of the eastern United States, dating to about 1450 BCE; and it was the site of the largest, permanently occupied community of the Archaic period (8000 BCE- 1000 BCE) in the southeastern part of the nation.
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
site on Marco Island
Marco Island, Florida
Marco Island is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States, located on an island by the same name in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Southwest Florida. It is a principal city of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, which was excavated in 1896 by Frank Hamilton Cushing
Frank Hamilton Cushing
Frank Hamilton Cushing was an American anthropologist and ethnologist...
of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. Cushing recovered more than 1,000 wooden artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s from the Key Marco site, the largest number of wooden artifacts from any prehistoric
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
archaeological site in the eastern United States
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
. These artifacts are described as some of the finest prehistoric native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
art in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. The Key Marco materials are principally divided between the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, commonly called The Penn Museum, is an archaeology and anthropology museum that is part of the University of Pennsylvania in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-History:An internationally renowned...
, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
; the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
, Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
; and the Florida Museum of Natural History
Florida Museum of Natural History
The Florida Museum of Natural History is the State of Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum. Its main facilities are located on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida....
, University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
. The original site was completely excavated and refilled. It is covered by the development of a housing subdivision.
In 1995 the Collier County Historical Society commissioned an archeological salvage project on an undeveloped portion of Key Marco, supervised by archeologists Randolph J. Widmer and Rebecca Storey. They hoped to be able to establish more context for the archeological site excavated by Cushing. Evidence was found of three platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
stages, with large houses built on pilings.
History
The Key Marco site was a small muckMuck (soil)
Muck is a soil made up primarily of humus from drained swampland. It is known as black soil in The Fens of eastern England, where it was originally mainly fen and bog. It is used there, as in the United States, for growing specialty crops such as onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes...
pond
Pond
A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens, water features and koi ponds; all designed for aesthetic ornamentation as landscape or architectural...
, covering less than an acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
. The conditions in the muck preserved the wood and other objects, including those made with bone, fiber, gum
Natural gum
Natural gums are polysaccharides of natural origin, capable of causing a large viscosity increase in solution, even at small concentrations. In the food industry they are used as thickening agents, gelling agents, emulsifying agents, and stabilizers...
, rawhide and gut
Catgut
Catgut is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fibre found in the walls of animal intestines. Usually sheep or goat intestines are used, but it is occasionally made from the intestines of cattle, hogs, horses, mules, or donkeys.-Etymology:...
. Objects of stone, shell and pottery were also found in the pond.
A great variety of artifacts were found in the pond, including bowls, mortars and pestles
Mortar and pestle
A mortar and pestle is a tool used to crush, grind, and mix solid substances . The pestle is a heavy bat-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, ceramic or stone...
, spears, atlatl
Atlatl
An atlatl or spear-thrower is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing.It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the dart. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup...
s, cords, ropes, nets, net floats, fishhooks, carved clubs, wooden tablets and plaques, wood ear spools, realistically carved animal heads, carved and painted masks, and a carved wooden feline/human figure (the so-called "Key Marco cat"). Many of the wooden objects, besides the masks, had been painted. The colors were still vivid when the objects were first removed from the muck. The artifacts were very well preserved due to being buried in the wet conditions.
At the time Key Marco was excavated, techniques for preserving wood and other fragile materials removed from the muck had not been developed. The colors on the painted objects quickly faded, and many objects quickly deteriorated. But, a photographer with the excavation party recorded all the objects soon after they were removed from the pond, thus preserving evidence of their appearance. Watercolors were also prepared by Wells M. Sawyer showing the colors of the painted objects.
Dating the Key Marco finds has been a problem. Because of the limited knowledge of the archeological discipline at the time, no record of the stratification
Stratification (archeology)
Stratification is a paramount and base concept in archaeology, especially in the course of excavation. It is largely based on the Law of Superposition...
of the objects was kept. They cannot be placed in sequence. There is no sign of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an trade goods or influence in the finds. Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
did not exist at the time of excavation. Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
of objects which have been handled and stored away from their original environment for long periods may not be reliable. In the 1960s an attempt to radiocarbon date some objects yielded a date of 1670 AD. A second attempt in 1975 using five different objects yielded dates from 55 AD to 850 AD.
Marco Island was occupied by the Muspa tribe, corresponding to the Ten Thousand Islands
Ten Thousand Islands (Florida)
The Ten Thousand Islands are a chain of islands and mangrove islets off the coast of southwest Florida, between Cape Romano and the mouth of Lostman's River. Some of the islands are high spots on a drowned shoreline. Others were produced by mangroves growing on oyster bars...
district of the Glades culture
Glades culture
The Glades culture is an archaeological culture in southernmost Florida that lasted from about 500 BCE until shortly after European contact. Its area included the Everglades, the Florida Keys, the Atlantic coast of Florida north through present-day Martin County and the Gulf coast north to Marco...
as defined in archeology. Around 1300 AD, pottery and artifact styles in the Muspa area changed to become very similar to those of the Calusa
Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American people who lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region; at the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture...
tribe to the north, indicating a close alliance with or absorption by the Calusa.
In 1995 the Collier County Historical Society arranged for an archeological salvage operation on an undeveloped portion of the Key Marco housing site. There were two mounds on this portion of the site. The project was led by archeologists Randolph J. Widmer and Rebecca Storey, who trained and led a volunteer labor effort, in association with related organizations. A stratigraphic analysis found 55 discrete layers, indicated by changes in shell and sand mixture. They found evidence of numerous postholes, which indicated a large structure built on pilings to raise it above the surface of the mound. They found additional evidence of early Glades culture, mostly through pottery remains.
Horr's Island
Some confusion about sites may arise from the fact that in the 1980s, a development company renamed the former Horr's IslandHorr's Island archaeological site
The Horr's Island archaeological site 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...
as "Key Marco". Horr's Island was the location of an independently significant archaeological site. It had the oldest indigenous burial mound of the eastern United States, dating to about 1450 BCE; and it was the site of the largest, permanently occupied community of the Archaic period (8000 BCE- 1000 BCE) in the southeastern part of the nation.