Posted 13 years ago
bahamaboy
(224 items)
From the age of maybe 7 or 8 the only thing I wanted to be when I grew up was an Archeologist. The pieces pictured here were found by me when I was in the 4th & 5th grade. I grew up about 2 miles as the crow flies from where I live today. In fact my home backs up to a large Federal State Park called the Timucuan Preserve and the Fort Caroline National Monument. Please click on the above pics to see the detail and if you want, to read some of the history about the early Florida natives. Thanks.
The French founded this area where I live on May 2nd of 1562 and named what is now the Saint Johns River the "River of May. There were an abundance of Indian burial mounds all over the woods around where I live now.
France & Spain were at war back in the mid 1500's and Spain landed at Saint Augustine Florida in the summer of 1565 and Pedro Menendez immediately marched an army of 500 soldiers up from Saint Augustine to attack the French at Fort Caroline. France had just two days before sent two ships down south the 35 miles to attack the Spanish at Saint Augustine. All this time a hurricane was going on and the French ships were wrecked at Matanzas (means slaughter in Spanish) Inlet which is a couple miles from Saint Augustine where they were stranded on a sandbar unable to swim to shore because of the shark infested waters.
The Spanish attacked the sparsely guarded fort at Ft. Caroline and promptly massacred 140 of the remaining French settlers, sparring only about 60 women & children. 50 others escaped into the woods and fled back to France. The Spanish soldiers under Menendez then marched back to Saint Augustine and sailed out a mile or so to the stranded French on the sandbar and promptly put 350 of them to the sword. He only spared a few professing to be Catholics and a few musicians. So France early on lost another battle/conflict and left Florida to the Spanish in which now Saint Augustine is now billed as our nations oldest city (oldest permanent settlement is the technical terminology).
But right here in my backyard literally is remnants of an earlier settlement by a good 3 years. Just wasn't a permanent one. Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to share these facts about where I grew up and live today. I actually will make one more post to show some other artifacts I have found down through the years right here within a thousand or so yards from my current home. Kinda neat huh.
I LOVE Pottery Shards. When I used to be able to get where I could find them, I would look for days. Sometimes I even found bone needles, spearheads, blanks and flake was always a sure sign pottery would be near. The pottery design is called St. Johns Pottery and has been found all the way up the eastern seaboard. Thank you for sharing !
I've had the pleasure, honor and opportunity to work on the ferry/boat that takes tourists from St. Marys to Cumberland Island. Cumberland was the home to a large tribe of Timucuan Indians. I had plently of time to explore the Island (the place is magical! It's good for the soul.) I did some detective work and found out where to look for pottery shards. I would walk down the riverbank at low tide and find them everywhere. Some still had decorations carved into the clay. I have one piece with a fingerprint in/on it. That still amazes me. After all that time, it still exists.
i found a spearhead on the beach shore of fernadia beach its north florida and i believe its from the Timucuan tribe but its hard to tell its like the sea water and coral fossalized it and it hard to find someone to look at it
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