In the last one hundred and forty something years since the
railroads were built, tourists have flocked to Florida during the
winter months. Some of these winter visitors included professors and
scholars from northern universities like Harvard and Yale who were
attracted to Florida's coastal region for reasons having as much to
do with research as with relaxation. Dr. Jeffries Wyman, the first
curator of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, came to Florida
initially for health reasons, but his interest in Florida archaeology
and especially the shell mounds of the east coast brought him back
year after year. Others explored the so-called "Indian" mounds of
Florida's coast and lake region. Several men employed by the Florida
East Coast railroad corresponded with the Director of Peabody Museum
at Harvard about the archaeological sites that they found during
their railroad surveys. Collections from these archaeological sites
were sent back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and records of the sites
were kept in the files.
The boom times of the 1920's brought developers from all over the country to Florida. Many of these men chose to buy and build in Miami and the south Florida area. Others chose the Gulf Coast near Tampa and St. Petersburg. During this construction activity, more archaeological sites were discovered or uncovered. Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian Institution wrote several articles on archaeological sites in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area including the Weeden Island mound and the Safety Harbor mound, both of which are in state or county parks today.
Archaeology, however, especially in the Southeastern United States, fared better than many academic disciplines. In fact, it became a focus of several of the government jobs program during the Depression, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Large archaeological sites such as the mound complex in Macon, Georgia were excavated for a number of years in order to employ large labor forces. A laboratory was set up in Macon and artifacts from sites in Georgia, and in Florida were processed there. Many sites throughout the Southeast were located and excavated by WPA crews supervised by trained archaeologists.
In the late 1930's, a few graduate students in archaeology were among those working at the sites in the Macon Plateau. One of them was Gordon Randolph Willey. Willey completed his undergraduate work at the University of Arizona where he also received a Masters degree in Anthropology in 1936. During the years at the University of Arizona he worked for several summers in the field at Pueblo sites. In 1936, he arrived in Macon, Georgia, to work on excavations there under the direction of Dr. A. R. Kelley. During the year in Macon, Willey met a number archaeologists with whom he would later work, including Phillip Phillips of Harvard, Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian, and James Ford. Ford had worked for Kelly in 1933 excavating sites in the Macon Plateau area. After that, he continued his work in the Southeast, in Georgia and continuing his work in the Lower Mississippi Valley. In 1937, Ford came back to work at Macon for several weeks. He and Willey became friends and collaborators on issues in Southeastern archaeology.
These were the days when great collaborations were beginning, such as Willey and Ford, Ford and James B. Griffin, Ford, Phillips and Griffin, and Willey and Phillips. Southeastern archaeology was young, this was new territory, and there was much to be discovered and synthesized. In 1938, Griffin and Ford organized the first meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference.
Willey worked at Macon during 1937-38. In September 1938, he married Katharine Whaley of Macon. Shortly after this, Willey went to New Orleans, Louisiana, to work with Jim Ford. By this time, Willey had developed an interest in Southeastern Archaeology. Over the next year, Willey and Ford worked together and collaborated on several publications. In the Fall of 1939, Willey began graduate school at Columbia University in New York. His collaborations with Ford continued and led to a symposium presentation on the archaeological chronologies of the Eastern United States. This was later published as "An Interpretation of the Prehistory of the Eastern United States."
While at Columbia, Willey developed the idea of a survey of Florida archaeological sites near Panama City in the Panhandle area on the Gulf Coast. He received funding from the Department of Anthropology at Columbia. He also received a small amount from the National Park Service to conduct a survey at the Lake Jackson Mounds near Tallahassee and on Santa Rosa Island further to the west. Willey enlisted the aid of another student at Columbia: Richard Woodbury. After preparations in New York and meetings with A. R. Kelley, of the National Park Service, and Matthew Stirling, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the two set out for Florida in June 1940.
Throughout the summer, Richard Woodbury kept a chronicle of the expedition through letters written to his family. Excerpts from these letters provide a look at the survey from a more personal and contemporaneous point of view.
We went over to see Stirling again (head of BAE) and he showed us
his Florida pottery, from around Tampa and points south, and gave us
some encouragement.
After Stirling we rushed up and bought a load of things from
Andrews Paper Store, tho the clerk took constant prodding not to fall
asleep. Gosh, you'd think a 14 dollar buy would result in more
interest.
This evening out to see Kelly and his family, and may take the
station wagon down for a grease job, it squeaks pretty badly.
Yesterday we spent seeing people -- gosh it takes a long time to be conversational . . . the people in the government mostly seem to have plenty of time to chat. We saw McClanahan in the Biological Survey and he gave us the names of various local pothunters and bigwigs in Pensacola, his home. Then I went on a fruitless search for boots and britches ... Meanwhile, Gordon was seeing Swanton again and got into the usual discussion of the war. ... after lunch. . . we saw Kelly and learned of a couple of early maps of the area showing Indian Villages and then visited Boward Burd of the Federal Board of Maps and Surveys who is supposed to know of all existing government maps of places. After long discussion of aerial photography we were sent over to the Commerce Building to Coast and Geodetic Survey and bought some of the planimetric maps of the region -- based on photos and at 6 inches to the mile.
Today was a little more successful .. . I finished almost all our shopping while Gordon shellacked the station wagon. ... So far we are on schedule, but plans are no more precise. From the air photos we saw yesterday our suspicions are confirmed that Santa Rosa is a pretty sandy and barren strip. Kelly gave us a body blow by remarking that he hadn't thought we'd find much of anything on SR [Santa Rosa] but he used that as a lead to get us down there so we could look over the mainland.
Yesterday we went out to Ocmulgee National Monument, about a mile from town. That is where Kelly dug for several years, and it is now being made the archaeological headquarters of the southeast. A big museum and laboratory is going up, the CCC camp on grounds is busy on roads and landscaping, and some digging is still going on.
At the monument we met various of Gordon's old colleagues and successors, including Jess Jennings, next archaeologist below Kelly in the NPS and Ronald Lee, head of the Historic Sites Division of the NPS. Also the major in charge of the CCC Camp, various Georgia Tech graduates who are junior foremen, and the archaeologist of the monument, Chuck Fairbanks.
Willey decided to continue his work in the southeast during the summer of 1940 in the Northwest Florida Gulf Coast, an area where very little archaeological work had been done. Willey had become familiar with the Gulf Coast on a previous visit and became interested in the area.
Left Moultrie this morning after a terrible breakfast at the only place in town open at six thirty. Reached Tallahassee shortly, and looked up the state geologist, Dr. Gunther, whose assistant, Clarence Simpson, is said to know the remains in the area very well. Simpson was away, and we learned of one of his disciples in relic collecting, a Nick Fallier whose father runs a cafe at a cabin camp near town. We found Nick after lunch, and as he couldn't get off work till later we visited Dr. Bellamy, professor of sociology in the Florida State College for Women, who know little about mounds, but was an interesting old bird, a real old-time long haired theoretical sociologist. The rest of the afternoon we spent with Nick at a site he know of, which far surpassed our wildest expectations: six mounds, from quite small up to about 6 or 8 meters high and 30 meters across the top, flat topped and steep sided. Apparently a ceremonial center of the Middle Mississippian Period style (late, and just barely prehistoric, that is, pre-DeSoto). We made sherd collections and sketched and photographed the general layout. Then pulled out for St. Marks, where we are now, at Mrs. Varnadoe's, clean but not cool.
Sunday, around St. Marks, we located and made collections form several sites which C. B. Moore had visited in 1904; also a couple he missed. The large shell middens, often covering tow or three acres, suffer badly from excavation by steam shovels for use on roads. It doesn't take long to remove all possibilities of archaeological study, aside from sherd collection. Some of the small sand mounds are in the most atrocious swampy jungles, reached by almost invisible roads which peter out, leaving a mile or so on foot thru as sticky and sweltering spots as I've ever seen.
We have temporarily finished the section east of Apalachicola, and today drove to Fort Walton... Then we came on to Pensacola, to look up two or three people we learned of in Washington who may know of sites in the area and who especially might be of some help in regards to Santa Rosa. [At the] Dorothy Walton Museum . . . we found out where to find T. T. Wentworth, a local pothunter, and went round to the Court House and looked him up. He seems a pretty good possibility, and we'll drop in tomorrow morning and he'll go out to a couple of sites with us. This evening we took in a movie . . . The Doctor Takes a Wife which was really funny tho class B.
The work east of Apalachicola went pretty well. The last few days
have been cloudy with frequent showers, but mostly it rains when
we're driving and stops when we reach a site. We had four or five
sites named on the old Moore map (he dug along here in 1900) and from
nearby fisherman and filling station men we found them, and learned
of others. One day we spent out on a little point of land that looks
like a speck on the map, but is ten or fifteen miles long and is a
tangle of sand roads and ponds and swamps. We found one of the sites
supposed to be there, on the sore of Alligator Harbor, but not the
other two, and got lost several times and stuck twice. Also were very
glad we had sandwiches and a thermos of milk along to supplement the
canteens of water and the salt pills and chewing gum.
Friday we looked up T. T. Wentworth, the Pensacola collector of
taxes and arrowpoints. With a friend of his who runs a shoe store we
drove out to a site they knew about, a few miles East, just across
the long Pensacola Bay Bridge (50 cents toll). We made a surface
collection and wrote u the site, and talked at length with an old
cracker who lives nearby and remembered C. B. Moore of 1902, whose
maps we find fairly helpful in locating sites. We learned of several
more sites from the guy, some of which we have looked up since then.
We also got a tentative plan out of Wentworth and his friend for them
to take us over to the island in their boat and see some sites said
to be there.
Willey and Woodbury also kept a daily journal of the expedition. It reflects the humor that must have sustained two during some of the hot days in the Florida panhandle.
Tonight we are located in Ft. Walton, at the Gulfview Hotel. As the 200 bucks just received in the mail, we asked for a suite and engaged [someone] to cook our meals. The champagne has not yet arrived but the cocktails are not bad. This evening we are entertaining all the social lights of town, with a beach party and oyster feast, after which we will seal up a representative collection and hide it in the shells, for the Moore of the future."
The 1940 survey concentrated on coastal rather than inland areas. Local residents were sometimes helpful but also sometimes disdainful of the archaeological work.
Several times during the summer, these coastal areas proved more than the station wagon could handle. The Journal again reflects a sense of humor in hindsight.
After failing to find Moore's "Hogtown Bayou" site or his two Pt.
Washington sites we got lost in the "great dank", a local swamp. The
car moved forward on what appeared to be a smooth grassy road with
indications of recent tire marks. (These marks proved to be a
mirage.) In less than two minutes we had sunk so deep that it was
impossible to get the doors of the station wagon open. Woodbury raced
the motor and the old bus continued to drive slowly forward --- but
downward. We listed heavily to the left. Water, algae, Spanish moss,
and minor flotsam and jetsam poured into the front seat. The motor
stalled. Fortunately all the other windows, except the front left
were up, although the pressure of the water and muck was so great
that the glass fairly creaked under the strain. In what was no less
than five minutes after we had driven into the morass we were seeing
the last vestiges of daylight as the grey-yellow murk of the swamp
was blotting out the horizon. We finally got the left front window
cranked up, but we were slowing stifling. Besides a water moccasin
had entangled himself in the steering wheel and was threatening to
give us hell if we disturbed him again. We whipped out our pocket
knives and were preparing to cut a hole through the top of the roof
to escape a horrible death when the wagon began to rise slowly out of
the treacherous "great dank". Some mysterious pressure raised us
about two feet, enough for the rt. front window to be opened and for
us to half crawl, half swim out.
Willey and Woodbury planned the field work and carried out the
survey themselves. However, extra help was needed during the
excavations. For this they looked to men and boys in the local
community. They received assistance from workers from the Civilian
Conservation Corps camp near the Gulf Breeze site.
. . .Sunday (yesterday) we came over here, having finally received the Go signal. Our boat, for working the island isn't here yet, so this morning we start digging at Ft. Walton, about 30 miles east. We get up to ten enrollees; at the moment we plan to take six, in the station wagon. As these next two weeks promise to be quite interesting, I better start right in and give it the works.
The camp is a side camp from Gulf State Park, Foley, Alabama. In charge here is Mr. Gravat, on of the Foremen from the mother-camp. At present there are about 30 men here, which is the minimum possible, as that makes an "overhead" of eight men; two cooks, two K.P.s, one relief K.P. for the week-end, one orderly, two men to alternate on duty in the office, and one first-aid man.
This week has gone fast. I've spent the whole time with 6 men, digging at Ft. Walton, and Gordon has been surveying for sites on the island with the boat and Capn Bob Bartlett (at least that's what his name should be).
The end of the week we'll leave for Macon, there to see what we can do on a preliminary report by the 1st of September.
Our CCC sojourn is over and we are on nearly the last leg of the survey. The last couple of days at the camp I spent finishing up the island. With two men to run the outboard motor boat and a man to walk around with me and carry stuff and things. We located five sites, all of which were so badly blown out that they wouldn't be worth digging. But the island is an interesting place. We were working down near the middle where no one gets very often and the birds are quite tame; pelicans in big flocks of a half dozen, and solitary ibises, and mobs of terns and a few gulls. And then if you look real hard you find that sandpipers and other shore-stalkers melt away when you get near but spring up behind again and are actually very plentiful tho highly inconspicuous. There were tracks of foxes several places, once a little fox with a big fox, or maybe Woozle. And once possum tracks.
On some of the big dunes (usually one occurs about every half mile on the sound side) are thick tangles of magnolia, fighting it out with the sand and wind. And to think of the trouble they go to in Boston to nurse scraggly little ones along and get a couple of blossoms. These were covered with blossoms, but mostly dried up now, and little perfume left. There are also broad areas of wild grapes and brambles and a little purple-flowered vine.
But on the whole I'm glad to be thru with Santa Rosa. It's as hot as you can imagine, with sand white as sugar and so fine it squeaks under your feet and no breeze when you get between the dunes along both shores.
Commentary:
At the end of the summer, Willey and Woodbury had visited a total of 87 archaeological sites in the Northwest Gulf Coast of Florida. Of these, they were able to conduct stratigraphic excavations at six. A preliminary report of the work and other reports on the pottery of the area were published by them in American Antiquity.
In 1943, Gordon Willey joined the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution. There he worked with Julian Steward on the publication of the Handbook of South American Indians. It was during this time at the Smithsonian that Matthew Stirling began to encourage Willey to write reports on archaeological work conducted by Stirling in Florida, and during WPA excavations in South Florida. Willey published a number of articles on Florida sites in American Antiquity including: "The Weeden Island Culture: A Preliminary Definition" in 1945 and "Negative -Painted Pottery from Crystal River, Florida" with Phillip Phillips, also in 1945.
The publication of these articles and the encouragement of his colleagues led to the publication of a synthesis of Florida Gulf Coast archaeology. This synthesis entitled "Archeology of the Florida Gulf Coast" has become a classic of Florida archaeology.
Between 1940 and 1949, Willey corresponded with other archaeologists such as Irving Rouse, John Goggin, Hale Smith and John Griffin, who had worked in Florida and had knowledge of sites on the Gulf Coast south of the Panhandle area. Willey also incorporated the work that Matthew Stirling had done on mounds in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area.
One of the archaeologists with whom Willey corresponded was John Goggin. Goggin, a native of Florida, was then at Yale but had worked in Florida and was very familiar with Florida archaeological sites and the collections from them. Willey was in constant communication with Goggin during the writing of the book. With Goggin, he visited the Peabody Museum at Harvard and the R.S. Peabody Museum in Andover, Massachusetts, to look at collections from Florida sites. They also studied the collections from Florida at the Heye Foundation in New York and at the U. S. National Museum.
Goggin joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida in the late 1940's and is well known for his early work on the Spanish missions of Florida.
Shortly before finishing Archeology of the Florida Gulf Coast, Gordon Willey had the opportunity to visit one of the most interesting sites in the middle Gulf Coast. The Crystal River Site, as it is known, is located on the Crystal River in Citrus County. It is now a state park and was recently designated a National Historic Landmark. Willey visited the site with Ripley Bullen who then working for the Florida Bureau of Parks. Bullen had conducted excavations there and was one of the few to report on the site other than Willey until a summary of the archaeological work at the site was written by Dr. Brent Weisman in 1987.
Willey received assistance from other Florida archaeologists as well. Hale Smith and John W. Griffin who were both working for the Florida Bureau of Parks at the time corresponded with Willey about sites in the Panhandle area. In 1947, Willey attended the first meeting of the Florida Anthropological Society, which was held at John Griffin's home in Daytona Beach. This meeting was followed up with significant publications in American Antiquity: "A Preliminary Definition of Archaeological Areas and Periods in Florida" by Goggin, "A West Indian Ax from Florida" by Goggin and Irving Rouse, "Two Historic Archaeological Periods in Florida" by Hale Smith, and "Cultural Sequence in the Manatee Region of West Florida", "The Cultural Context of the Crystal River Negative-Painted Style", and "A Prototype for the Southern Cult" by Gordon Willey.
Gordon Willey joined Faculty of Harvard College in 1950 as the
Bowditch Professor of Mayan Archaeology. He held this chair until his
retirement in 1987. He is now the Bowditch Professor Emeritus. Willey
is one of the best known and most highly regarded American
Archaeologists.