Crystal River Mounds |
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Still another example of Woodland period archeological sites is the Crystal River Mounds found in northwestern Florida. The Crystal River mounds consist of two larger temple mound structures, a small mound used for residential purposes, as well as several burial mounds (Florida). The Crystal River mound complex is approximately 14 acres and dates variously from 200BC to approximately 1300 or 1400AD (Milanich).
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The Crystal River Mounds have been found to contain various pottery artifacts and the burial mounds, as other mounds in pre-Columbian archeological sites within Florida, contain artifacts that were not sourced locally, such as Grizzly Bear teeth, mica from the Appalachian Mountain area to the north of Florida, and copper earrings from the Ohio area. The primary burial mound consists of white sand and is said to contain, by some estimates, as many as a 1,000 separate burials (Milanich). The Crystal River mound complex also contains two stone objects estimated to date to 440-450AD and whose purpose is not definitively known. These stone objects are about five feet in height and are fashioned out of limestone and one is carved to be representative of a human head (Milanich). Some archeologists have hypothesized that the entire complex is a massive calendar to mark the major planetary events such as equinoxes, solstices, and star alignments (Milanich).
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Resources & Further Reading:
Milanich, Jerald T. Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1994.
Morgan, William N. Pre-Columbian Architecture in Eastern North America. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1999.
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