A landmark study of Spain’s fortified settlements in West Florida from a lifelong specialist on the period Southern Anthropological Society James Mooney Award Presidios of Spanish West Florida provides the first comprehensive synthesis of historical and archaeological investigations conducted at the fortified settlements built by Spain in the Florida panhandle from 1698 to 1763. Combining intensive research by author Judith Bense, a lifelong specialist on the Spanish West Florida period, with a century’s worth of additional data, this landmark study brings to light four presidio locations that have long been overshadowed by the presidio at St. Augustine to the east, revealing the rest of the story of early Spanish Florida. Bense details a history fraught with catastrophe—hurricanes, war against France and England, and treaties that forced the Spanish base in West Florida to be uprooted and rebuilt four times. Examining each presidio, including associated military outposts, a shipwreck, and refugee mission villages of the Apalachee and Yamasee Indians, this book provides four discrete, sequential windows into the Spanish presence in the region. Bense compares the population to that of Presidio San Agustĺn, established 133 years earlier, revealing very different communities, people, and local customs. Interwoven with these historical findings is an account of how the general public has participated in investigations in the region, providing readers with an understanding of eighteenth-century West Florida and the development of public archaeology in the state from the person who initiated and directed much of the research. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

"A significant contribution to Spanish colonial studies."--Bonnie McEwan, director of archaeology, San Luis Archaeological and Historic Site "An excellent book that will stand as the definitive historical and archaeological reference on early Pensacola . . . and will undoubtedly become a classic."--Gregory Waselkov, University of South Alabama This examination of the Pensacola presidio and its fort during the first Spanish colonial period provides a rich inventory of artifacts and new interpretations of life among the 18th-century settlers and their evolving interactions with local native populations and with Mobile and Veracruz. Based on long-term interdisciplinary study and excavation, Judith Bense's book provides the first intensive account of an early colonial Spanish presidio in La Florida. As such, it will be of interest to researchers throughout the Spanish borderlands from California and northern Mexico to Florida. CONTENTS Foreword by Jerald T. Milanich, series editor Preface 1. Introduction and Overview, by Judith A. Bense 2. Historical Context and Overview, by John James Clune 3. Settlement, Settlers, and Survival: Documentary Evidence, by John James Clune, R. Wayne Childers, William S. Coker, and Brenda N. Swann 4. Archaeological Remains, by Judith A. Bense and H. James Wilson 5. Zooarchaeological Remains, by Catherine Parker 6. Archaeobotanical Remains, by Donna L. Ruhl 7. Native Americans, by Norma J. Harris 8. External Connections, by Sandra L. Johnson 9. Summary and Discussion, by Judith A. Bense Appendix I. Historical Data Appendix II. Archaeological Data Appendix III. Zooarchaeological Data Appendix IV. Archaeobotanical Data Appendix V. Indian-made Ceramic Data Appendix VI. Comparative Artifact Assemblages Judith A. Bense is professor and chair of anthropology and director of the Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida. She is the editor of Archaeology of Colonial Pensacola, 1750-1821 (UPF, 1999) and Archaeology of the Southeastern United States: Paleoindian to World War II (1986).

Mission Cemeteries, Mission Peoplesoffers clear, accessible explanations of complex methods for observing evolutionary effects in populations. Christopher Stojanowski's intimate knowledge of the historical, archaeological, and skeletal data illuminates the existing narrative of diet, disease, and demography in Spanish Florida and demonstrates how the intracemetery analyses he employs can provide likely explanations for issues where the historical information is either silent or ambiguous. Stojanowski forgoes the traditional broad analysis of Native American populations and instead looks at the physical person who lived in the historic Southeast. What did that person eat? Did he suffer from chronic diseases? With whom did she go to a Spanish church? Where was she buried in death? The answers to these questions allow us to infer much about the lives of mission peoples.

Prehistoric Florida societies, particularly those of the peninsula, have been largely ignored or given only minor consideration in overviews of the Mississippian southeast (A.D. 1000-1600). This groundbreaking volume lifts the veil of uniformity frequently draped over these regions in the literature, providing the first comprehensive examination of Mississippi-period archaeology in the state. Featuring contributions from some of the most prominent researchers in the field, this collection describes and synthesizes the latest data from excavations throughout Florida. In doing so, it reveals a diverse and vibrant collection of cleared-field maize farmers, part-time gardeners, hunter-gatherers, and coastal and riverine fisher/shellfish collectors who formed a distinctive part of the Mississipian southeast.

Both archaeological and historical information are combined in this discussion of the Colonial period in the area surrounding the city of Pensacola. Particular mention is made of the emergence and social history of the Creek, Seminole and Miccosukee Indians.

Presenting the most current research and thinking on prehistoric archaeology in the Southeast, this volume reexamines some of Florida’s most important Paleoindian sites and discusses emerging technologies and methods that are necessary knowledge for archaeologists working in the region today. Using new analytical methods, contributors explore fresh perspectives on sites including Old Vero, Guest Mammoth, Page-Ladson, and Ray Hole Spring. They discuss the role of hydrology—rivers, springs, and coastal plain drainages—in the history of Florida’s earliest inhabitants. They address both the research challenges and the unique preservation capacity of the state’s many underwater sites, suggesting solutions for analyzing corroded lithic artifacts and submerged midden deposits. Looking towards future research, archaeologists discuss strategies for finding additional pre-Clovis and Clovis-era sites offshore on the southeastern continental shelf. The search is important, these essays show, because Florida’s prehistoric sites hold critical data for the debate over the nature and timing of the first human colonization of the Western Hemisphere.