The St. Johns culture was an archaeological culture

Archaeological culture

An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of artifacts from a specific time and place, which are thought to constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between the artifacts is based on archaeologists' understanding and interpretation and...

 in northeastern 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...

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 that lasted from about 500 BCE (the end of the Archaic period) until shortly after 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 contact in the 17th century. The St. Johns culture was present along the St. Johns River

St. Johns River

The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...

 and its tributaries (including the Oklawaha River, and along the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 coast of Florida from the mouth of the St. Johns River south to a point east of the head of the St. Johns River, near present-day Cocoa Beach, Florida

Cocoa Beach, Florida

Cocoa Beach is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 12,482 at the 2000 census. According to the U.S. Census Bureau estimates of 2008, the city had a population of 11,920...

. At the time of first European contact, the St. Johns culture area was inhabited by speakers of the Mocama

Mocama

The Mocama were a Native American people who lived in the coastal areas of what are now northern Florida and southeastern Georgia. A Timucua group, they spoke the dialect known as Mocama, the best-attested dialect of the Timucua language. Their territory extended from about the Altamaha River in...

 (or Agua Salada), Agua Fresca and Acuera

Acuera

Acuera was reported to be the tribal headsman of a community of indigenous people of the same name. The Acuera were a Timucua people who flourished, in the north central region what is now called Florida, at the time of European arrival in the 16th century but, after fiercely defending their...

 dialects of the Timucua language

Timucua language

Timucua is a language isolate formerly spoken in northern and central Florida and southern Georgia by the Timucua people. Timucua was the primary language used in the area at the time of Spanish arrival in Florida. Linguistic and archaeological studies suggest that it may have been spoken from...

 and by the Mayacas

Mayaca (tribe)

Mayaca was the name used by the Spanish to refer to an Indian tribe in central Florida, to the principal village of that tribe and to the chief of that village in the 1560s. The Mayacas occupied an area in the upper St. Johns River valley just to the south of Lake George...

.

Defining characters and environment

The St. Johns culture is defined in terms of pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 styles. Plain chalky ware was the dominant St. Johns ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

 type. ("Chalky" ware was made from clay taken from fresh water sources, which contained spicule

Spicule

Spicules are tiny spike-like structures of diverse origin and function found in many organisms, such as the copulatory spicules of certain nematodes or the grains on the skin of some frogs.In sponges, spicules perform a structural function....

s from fresh water sponges. The spicules in the clay helped strengthen the pottery, and created a "chalky" surface, soft enough to be scratched with a fingernail.) "Exotic" ceramic ware is common, especially in ceremonial

Ceremony

A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...

 contexts. These "exotic" ceramics represent types from the Deptford

Deptford culture

The Deptford culture was characterized by the appearance of elaborate ceremonial complexes, increasing social and opolitical complexity, mound burial, permanent settlements, population growth, and an increasing reliance on cultigens....

, Glades

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...

, Belle Glade

Belle Glade culture

The Belle Glade culture, or Okeechobee culture, is an archaeological culture that existed from as early as 1000 BCE until about 1700 in the area surrounding Lake Okeechobee and in the Kissimmee River valley in the U.S...

, Swift Creek

Swift Creek culture

The Swift Creek culture was a Middle Woodland period archaeological culture in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee, dating to around 100-800 CE. In Florida, Swift Creek ceremonial practices and burial complexes are referred to technically as the Yent-Green Point complex...

, Weeden Island

Weeden Island culture

The Weeden Island Culture is one of the many archaeological cultures that existed during the Late Woodland period of the North American Southeast...

, Savannah, Safety Harbor, and Fort Walton

Fort Walton Culture

Fort Walton Culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in southeastern North America, from approximately 1100~1550 CE....

 cultures. There was a transitional area from the mouth of the St. Johns River extending into southeastern Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 where St. Johns ware overlapped with Savannah ware, and another transitional area, the Indian River region (southern Brevard County

Brevard County, Florida

Brevard County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida, along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the population is 536,521, making it the 10th most populous county in the state. Influenced by the presence of the John F. Kennedy Space Center, Brevard...

, and Indian River

Indian River County, Florida

Indian River County is a county located in the Treasure Coast region in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 112,947. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 128,594...

 and St. Lucie

St. Lucie County, Florida

St. Lucie County is a county located in the state of Florida. The county seat is the city of Fort Pierce. In the year 2000, the population was 192,695. As of the year 2010, the United States Census Bureau sets the population at 277,789.- History :...

 counties), where St. Johns ware overlapped with Belle Glade and Glades ware.

The St. Johns culture was based on the exploitation of marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 and fresh water resources. Villages and camps were located close to rivers, lakes, wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

s, coastal lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

s and estuaries

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

. During the 2000 years of the St. Johns culture, large midden

Midden

A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...

s of shell and other debris, sometimes covering several 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...

s and often up to 25 feet (7.6 m) high, accumulated throughout the region (Turtle Mound

Turtle Mound

Turtle Mound is a historic site located south of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on State Road A1A. On September 29, 1970, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is the largest shell midden on the mainland United States, with an approximate height of . Turtle Mound was...

, near New Smyrna Beach, Florida

New Smyrna Beach, Florida

New Smyrna Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. The population was 20,048 according to the 2000 census. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 23,161.-History:...

, was estimated to be 75 feet (22.9 m) high before it was reduced by shellrock mining in the 19th and 20th centuries). Some existing mounds extend for as long as a half-mile along the banks of the St. Johns River.

Diet and resources

While oyster

Oyster

The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....

, clam

Clam

The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...

 and mussel

Mussel

The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...

 shells dominate the middens, bone

Bone

Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...

s found in the middens indicate that catfish

Catfish

Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...

 were a much larger component of the St. Johns people's diet than were shellfish

Shellfish

Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...

. The St. Johns diet consisted of a wide variety of fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, shellfish, reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

s, mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s and bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s. Investigation of a site at Hontoon Island

Hontoon Island State Park

Hontoon Island State Park is a Florida State Park located on Hontoon Island between the St. Johns River and the Hontoon Dead River in Volusia County. It is six miles west of DeLand, off SR 44, and can only be reached by boat or park operated ferry. The island has pine flatwoods, palm and oak...

 indicated that fresh water snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

s, fish and turtle

Turtle

Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...

s provided most of the meat consumed at the site, and that those resources were exploited year-round. Plant foods included berries

Berry

The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....

, nut

Nut (fruit)

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...

s, cabbage palm

Sabal palmetto

Sabal palmetto, also known as cabbage palm, palmetto, cabbage palmetto, palmetto palm, blue palmetto, Carolina palmetto, common palmetto, swamp cabbage and sabal palm, is one of 15 species of palmetto palm . It is native to the southeastern United States, Cuba, and the Bahamas...

, amaranth

Amaranth

Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a cosmopolitan genus of herbs. Approximately 60 species are recognized, with inflorescences and foliage ranging from purple and red to gold...

, and various small plants, especially those growing in wetlands. Gourd

Gourd

A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae. Gourd is occasionally used to describe crops like cucumbers, squash, luffas, and melons. The term 'gourd' however, can more specifically, refer to the plants of the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita or also to their hollow dried out shell...

s were grown, but probably used as containers. Maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

 cultivation reached the Timucua speakers of the St. Johns culture area around 750, although some authorities think the arrival was as late as 1050. The southernmost part of the St. Johns culture area (the Mayacas) had not acquired maize cultivation at the time of first European contact. The St. Johns peoples were not as dependent on maize cultivation as were most cultures in the southeastern United States

Southeastern United States

The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America....

, as suitable soil for sustainable maize production was scarce in the wetlands favored for habitation, and abundant wetland resources were available year-round.

Except along the western fringes of the region, the only stone

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

 resources available were soft coquina

Coquina

Coquina is a sedimentary rock that is composed either wholly or almost entirely of the transported, abraded, and mechanically sorted fragments of the shells of either molluscs, trilobites, brachiopods, or other invertebrates. For a sediment to be considered to be a coquina, the average size of the...

 and sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

, which were used for grinding and abrading tools. Tools and implements were more often made of bone and shell, than of stone. Stone artifacts (usually made of chert

Chert

Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline or microfibrous sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color , but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red; its color is an expression of trace elements...

) in the St. Johns culture are a mixture of styles preserved from the Archaic period with styles representative of neighboring cultures. Wooden artifacts that were preserved in water and wet soils have also been found.

Mounds

Purpose-built mound

Mound

A mound is a general term for an artificial heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. The most common use is in reference to natural earthen formation such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. The term may also be applied to any rounded area of topographically...

s of sand (as opposed to shell middens) first appeared in the St. Johns culture region around the year 100. As was common throughout Florida, mounds were used for burials. Some bodies were buried intact, in a flexed position, but most were first placed in charnel house

Charnel house

A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves...

s, which were often built on top of a mound. The flesh

Flesh

In vertebrate animals, flesh is the colloquial for biological tissue which consists of skeletal muscles and fat as opposed to bones, viscera and integuments. Flesh may be used as food, in which case it is called meat....

 was removed from, or allowed to rot off of, the bones, and the bones were cleaned. Eventually the accumulated long bone

Long bone

The long bones are those that are longer than they are wide. They are one of five types of bones: long, short, flat, irregular and sesamoid. Long bones, especially the femur and tibia, are subjected to most of the load during daily activities and they are crucial for skeletal mobility. They grow...

s and skull

Human skull

The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...

s of each individual were bundled and then buried in a group in the mound. The charnel house would then be destroyed, often by fire. A new layer of sand might then be added to the mound, and a new charnel house build on the top.

The early mounds in the St. Johns culture region were generally four feet high up to an occasional ten feet. The number of burials in a mound might be as high as 100, but most held fewer than 25. After 1050 influence from the Mississippian culture

Mississippian culture

The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....

 led some groups to construct 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...

s, which may have been topped by temples and/or chiefs' residences. One of these mounds, the Shields mound in Duval County

Duval County, Florida

Duval County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2010, the population was 864,263. Its county seat is Jacksonville, with which the Duval County government has been consolidated since 1968...

, eventually reached 190 feet (57.9 m) along each side of the base, and held 150 burials. Another mound, Mt. Royal Mound, just north of Lake George

Lake George (Florida)

Lake George or Lake Welaka is a broad and shallow brackish lake on the St. Johns River in the U.S. state of Florida.-Geography:Lake George is six miles wide and eleven miles long, with an average depth of 8 feet . The west side of the lake is encompassed in the Ocala National Forest...

, which was 15 feet (4.6 m) high and 160 feet (48.8 m) in diameter, was primarily a burial mound. This mound also contained many items apparently received as trade goods from the region of the Mississippian culture. Chiefdoms in the St. Johns culture region did not achieve the size and power of those to the west, from the Florida panhandle

Florida Panhandle

The Florida Panhandle, an informal, unofficial term for the northwestern part of Florida, is a strip of land roughly 200 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide , lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia also on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is...

through to the Mississippi valley, and large platform mounds were rare in the St. Johns region.

External links

• Southeastern Prehistory - Middle Woodland Period - Retrieved July 17, 2007
• An Environmental History of Northeast Florida By Miller, James J. - Retrieved July 17, 2007