Turtle Mound |
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The Turtle Mound archeological site is a part of the Canaveral National Seashore area of Easter Florida famous for Cape Canaveral and NASA. The Turtle Mound is actually the tallest shell midden, a collection of shells and fishbone among other refuse, in the United States. It is a site consisting of several acres in area and has in excess of 34,000 cubic meters of shell material (Milanich). It is thought to have once been over 75 feet in height and is visible for several miles in all directions. It has been dubbed Turtle Mound because it has slowly taken the form of a turtle; at least in a cursory manner.
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Turtle Mound is representative of mound architecture of the Mississippian Period and dates back to approximately 1200AD and remained in constant use until the arrival of the Spanish in the mid 1500s. The culture that inhabited this mound area deposited religious and civic material shell gorgets and pottery artifacts (Mainfort). During this time archeologists have noted that greater reference to war and fighting on the ceremonial and civic items in the form of drawings or carving occurs (Waselkov & Braund). The Turtle Mound culture as well as other pre-Columbian cultures of the Mississippian Period experienced greater competitive forces for finite resources such as arable land resulting in increased open conflict. This is apparent in some of the material found in the Turtle Mound location where it occupied an important location along the coast.
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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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