Exploring Florida Cultural Legacies

Lake Jackson and Key Marco

Located near Tallahassee in Leon County and flourishing between 1100 and 1400 CE, Lake Jackson was a major Mississippian ceremonial center boasting mound construction, elaborate maize agriculture and sustaining the most politically complex culture in precontact Florida. Sophisticated burial art objects such as repoussé copper breastplates, engraved shell gorgets, pendants and hair ornaments found in its mounds show style similarities with comparable objects in major sites in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex network such as Spiro, Moundville and Etowah, evincing a dynamic exchange activity. 

Key Marco, Florida Expedition 1895 – 96

Southwards along the Florida Gulf Coast is Key Marco.The William Pepper expedition, led by Frank Hamilton Cushing, is considered one of the major events in North American archaeology. The site that Cushing called the “Court of Pile Dwellers,” is located in a muck pond of less than one acre. Remarkably, the excavation yielded more than 1000 wooden and cord artifacts, as well as hundreds of objects in shell and bone. The artifacts were deposited anywhere from the 700’s CE to the contact period in the 1500’s.  Although not fully participant in the Southeast Cultural Complex network, excavated shell gorgets with the cross in circle motif are evidence of interaction with northern ceremonial centers.