Artifact Analysis

This chapter presents the results of the artifact analysis which consists almost exclusively of some 1,110 chipped stone tools and cores and several thousand pieces of stone debitage. Morphological and technological criteria were used to classify the assemblage into bifaces, unifaces, cores, hammerstones, and abraders. Toolstone appears to have been acquired locally from the abundant limestone replaced cherts available in the vicinity of Tampa Bay. An exception to this is the presence of four rather amorphous shaped “exotic” metamorphic rocks—presumably acquired from outside the state. The function of these artifacts is unclear but given their size and shape, three of them could have functioned as planes or abraders. The fourth specimen is too large to be hand-held but could have functioned as an anvil. The presence of these artifacts in the assemblage is an enigma, and it is speculated the stone arrived via interband exchange.

Settlement Systems and Technology: A Summary Model

This chapter summarizes the preceding analyses by looking at the relationship between hunter-gatherer settlement systems and technology. Situated on a ridge slope overlooking the large inland basin of Harney Flats, the site is topographically well positioned to serve as a residential base providing a vantage point to observe animals in the basin, provide access to water, and obtain nearby suitable toolstone. Indeed, the site assemblage has been influenced by the readily available quantities of knappable chert. Manufacturing different tool types is seen as a principal activity at the site, and inferences are made with regard to the overall roles of these tools within the settlement system. With respect to technological organization, distinctions are made between expedient tools (manufactured for short-term use on-site) and curated tools (manufactured for long-term use elsewhere in the settlement system). Other items such as hammerstones, cores, and abraders were likely stored at the site awaiting reuse.

A Comparative Overview of Early Man Sites

Many early sites throughout North America bear similarities regarding their lack of worked bifaces. Conversely, unifacially flaked tools at sites ranging from Blackwater Draw in New Mexico to Debert in Nova Scotia to Harney Flats in Florida are pervasive. It seems evident that unifaces were the hallmark of the Paleoindian period and represent stylistic homogeneity. Paleoindian peoples also shared a preference for using high-quality silicates from which they fashioned their tools. Tools of these stone types are often in sites great distances from their geologic source. Also, the idea that Paleoindians subsisted primarily by hunting now extinct megafauna is an overly simplistic view of how they utilized and adapted to their environments. Last, the Harney Flats report revisits the structural patterning at several eastern Paleoindian sites, such as Debert (Nova Scotia), Holcombe Beach (Michigan), Thunderbird (Virginia) and Vail (Maine) as a matter of comparison.

Intra-Site Spatial Analysis

This chapter describes attempts to elucidate the internal site structure of the Suwannee-Bolen component at Harney Flats which was a major goal of the project. SYMAPS of the flake distributions and piece-plotted artifact distributions for each excavation area are illustrated and examined with respect to ethnoarchaeological models of hunter-gatherer site structure. Spatial patterning within each area is less clear than patterning between areas. That is, while the three areas are generally similar in the range of tool types they contain, they do differ in the relative frequencies of those tool types. The assemblages of Areas 2 and 3 are interpreted to represent activities primarily associated with tool manufacture and core reduction. The Area 1 assemblage differs from the other two areas and is interpreted as a living area. Moreover, Area 1 is situated on the highest and flattest portion of the site, with Areas 2 and 3 situated farther downslope.

Methodology

This chapter discusses the excavation methodology. Based on the identification of Suwannee points in artifact collections made by avocational archaeologists along the Tampa Bypass Canal near Harney Flats, ten weeks of Phase II fieldwork were spent systematically testing the right-of-way. This work revealed significant stratified deposits that were the subject of four months of Phase III excavations with a large crew. This work focused on opening three large block excavations totaling 967 m2. As one goal of the project was to reveal intrasite spatial patterning, hand excavation was done within 1 m squares in 20 cm levels while recognizable tools and cores were plotted three-dimensionally. Two problems of note were encountered during the fieldwork: heavy rains eroded portions of the excavations and site vandalism.

Developing Models of a Band Society

Beginning with the assumption that Paleoindian peoples were organized into hunter-gatherers bands, archaeologists have developed prehistoric settlement models based upon ethnographically known hunter-gather groups. One such model created by Lewis Binford identified two general site types called base camps and work camps. Archaeologists have concluded that prehistoric hunter-gatherers exhibited a settlement mobility organized around resource zones such as rivers, waterholes, lakes, diverse ecotones (which provided a greater variety of plants and animals), and stone quarries from which they could obtain raw materials to fashion tools. We presume that the early prehistoric bands around Tampa Bay were territorial or at least occupied exclusive territories. Traditionally, the difference between Paleoindian and Archaic settlement patterns focused on the alleged readaptation that occurred between the Pleistocene and Holocene. More recently, though, Cleland’s focal/diffuse model notes a change from specialized adaptations geared toward similar resources to an economy focused on varied or scattered resources.

Research Background

The I-75 Highway Salvage Program, administered by the Florida Division of Historical Resources (DHR) and funded by the Florida Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, facilitated DHR’s Bureau of Archaeological Research in the early to mid-1980s to locate and evaluate 31 archaeological sites in the proposed corridor of Interstate 75. Thirteen of these 31 sites were selected for Phase II testing, with 4 of the 13 (including Harney Flats) deemed significant enough to warrant Phase III mitigative salvage excavations. While most of these sites primarily contained Middle Archaic components, Harney Flats also contained in situ evidence of much earlier Early Archaic and Paleoindian peoples. The most dramatic environmental effect on the Harney Flats area was the Tampa Bypass Canal. If not for the construction of this canal, which lowered the potentiometric water table in the area, much of the Paleoindian component at Harney Flats would have been inaccessible.

Context of Paleo-lndian in Central Florida

Unfortunately, as elsewhere in the Southeast, most Florida Paleoindian sites exist as isolated lanceolate points and alleged kill sites. Most purported associations of Paleoindian points with extinct Ice Age fauna remain dubious. Probably the most well-known Paleoindian sites are Little Salt Spring and Warm Mineral Springs, both in Sarasota County. These two sites contained both Paleoindian and Archaic diagnostic artifacts. Artifacts from Warm Mineral Springs, for example, appear to be temporally related to Archaic points or, at best Transitional, such as Greenbriar point. Besides Harney Flats, the only other location that produced in situ Paleoindian tools was the Silver Springs Site in Marion County. Although the Suwannee point and its variants is thought to be the predominant Florida Paleoindian diagnostic artifact, it remains undated. It is agreed by most professional archaeologists, nevertheless, that Suwannees represent Florida’s earliest point type and are the most characteristic Paleoindian tool in Florida.

Site Stratification and Cultural Stratification

This chapter describes site stratigraphy. Site deposition appears to have been dominated by windblown sand that was sufficient to bury lithic assemblages creating a stratified sequence at Harney Flats. Excavation profiles at Harney Flats were dominated by some two meters of pedogenically modified sands. The upper 1.6 meters of sand contained archaeological deposits dominated by a Bolen/Suwannee component concentrated from 100 to 130 centimeters below surface and a Newnan component from roughly 60 to 90 centimeters below surface. A much more ephemeral later period ceramic component was present from about 40 to 60 centimeters below surface. Of significance is that a dense hardpan soil zone present from about 75 to 85 centimeters below surface prevented stratigraphic mixing of the Newnan and Bolen/Suwannee assemblages.