Project seeks to unearth Timucuan history of Ocklawaha

[Doc Samson]

Project seeks to unearth Timucuan history of Ocklawaha



Bruce Ackerman/staff photographer
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David Russell, left, and Han Naymick search for artifacts using a dirt sifter at the archaeological dig site in Moss Bluff on Friday.

By Michael Oppermann
Correspondent

Published: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 8, 2010 at 11:21 p.m.

MOSS BLUFF - Ongoing discoveries at a 17th-century archaeological dig near the Ocklawaha River are providing new insights into the culture of the Acuera, a Timucuan tribe that was living in the region where Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto led an expedition in 1539.

[Doc Samson]

Through luck, hard work and the study of records collated by one of his mentors, University of Florida doctoral candidate Willet Boyer III tracked down what he believes to be Santa Lucia de Acuera, a lost site that was at one point the most remote Franciscan mission in all of Florida.

Evidence of missionary construction uncovered a year ago has since led Boyer's team to unearth the complete footprint of a large building that seems to have been the church, as well as the corner of a nearby smaller structure that was likely either the mission's cocina (kitchen) or friary.

"For this spring's fieldwork, which we anticipate running through April, what we are hoping to do is determine the nature of this building," Boyer said. "Our main goal is to outline the area and see how large this building is."

"By working here, I've found that the pottery is more interesting than the arrowheads," said Robin Corsiglia, who developed an avid interest in archaeology during his youth and has been volunteering at the site since retiring from Lockheed Martin a little over a year ago.

"Back in (19)61, every time they'd grade the roads I'd find the arrowheads that had come up," he said.

[Doc Samson]

Reconstruction

While arrowheads can be found at the riverside dig, the beads, metal pieces and pottery buried within three trash pits adjacent to the newly unearthed structure are what led Boyer to suspect he has found the friary, although bits of animal bone within the pits may be indicative of kitchen scraps.

Work is slow and complicated because — as the mission was founded about 1627 and likely lasted until the Timucuan Rebellion of 1656 — nothing remains of the 350-year-old site save for tiny object fragments and discolored soil. These indicate where structural posts and other building features were located.

Despite these difficulties, Boyer is combining his archaeological finds with an analysis of the few surviving documents from the period to form a fascinating reconstruction of the Acuera culture worthy of a "CSI" episode.

"Unlike the other Timucua, who were Catholicized, these people were not," Boyer said. Despite having a mission within their village for up to three decades, "they stayed true to their traditional ways."

[Doc Samson]

"There is a record from the 1640s where Governor Ruiz de Salazar sent a soldier from the St. Augustine garrison to arrest a shaman among the Acuera. The record suggests this shaman had a pretty substantial following; so even while the mission was here, you had religious leaders who were practicing openly," he said.

Boyer suspects the Acuera were unique in their resistance to conversion due to the deeply religious nature of their pre-existing society, noting that almost every personal or place name associated with them had supernatural connotations.

"These people apparently were seen by other Timucuan and by themselves as ritual keepers," Boyer theorized.

Unprecedented

Physical evidence backing up this assertion can be found within the building suspected to have been the mission. While sifting through the earth along what was once the center of the structure's western wall, Boyer's assistants uncovered a small whelk shell that appears to have been deliberately placed.

Additionally, the northwest corner of the building had a 9,000-year-old bolen point arrowhead at the same depth, which suggests it too was set there deliberately.

[Doc Samson]

Whelk shells would have been gained through trade with coastal tribes and were used to hold a ritual beverage known as the black drink, while the millennia old arrowhead likely held special significance for a tribe whose name translates as either "keepers of time" or "ancient ones."

To Boyer's knowledge, the placement of such items within the structure of a mission is unprecedented.

"Whoever the friar was, they apparently dealt very well with him personally, because they could have run him out of here any time they wanted," he said. "They apparently respected him as a person enough to let him live here all that time, but obviously that didn't persuade them that what he was selling was what they wanted.

"Where I go with the long-term research will depend upon funding and upon where I end up," said Boyer, who expects to soon defend a doctoral dissertation based on his work at the site. "At some point, I'd like to travel to the Vatican and see if we can uncover some of the documents there."

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