THE SHELL SEEKERS

How hunter-gatherers in northern Florida facing an uncertain future revived a powerful symbol of their past

- ERIC A. POWELL

HUNTER-GATHERERS THRIVED in Florida for more than eight millennia before they began to make pottery around 2600 B.C., during the Late Archaic period. This invention seems to have dramatically changed their daily and ritual lives. These people, who harvested shellfish in enormous quantities, had participated in long-distance trading networks that brought them goods such as stone beads from Mississippi and ornaments called bannerstones from Georgia. Such objects were often buried with high-status members of society, who likely controlled the trade networks. But, with the advent of pottery, people in northern Florida stopped importing such prestigious objects. "Unlike stone beads or other exotic items, pottery was accessible to anyone who could dig clay," says archaeologist Zackary Gilmore of Rollins College. In northern Florida during the Late Archaic period (ca. 3700-1500 B.C.), people used Spanish moss as temper-a substance added to clay to prevent it from breaking when fired-to make ceramics, some of which appear orange in color. They decorated these vessels with abstract motifs consisting of multiple incised straight lines. Many of the geometric patterns they created include designs such as chevrons and triangles, which their ancestors had carved on bone, antler, and wooden objects.