Those of us who attended the FAS conference had a wonderful time in Tallahassee.  We would like to give a special thanks to the members of PAST, the region’s FAS chapter, who hosted and made it such a great success.  The conference was held at the wonderful Mission San Luis whose volunteers and employees did an excellent job of running a top notch public archaeology facility while the conference was occurring.  Represented at this conference were a few of our own CFAS members who did a top notch job representing our chapter as well as their research.  Thanks to everyone who made it a great conference and we’ll see you next year in St. Augustine!

Not pictured is CFAS rep. Jason Wenzel who presented his paper “Sunshine, Booze, and Monkeys: Perspectives For The Anthropology of Florida Tourism.”  As can be guessed it was a pretty popular paper!

CFAS Director-At-Large Gregg Harding presenting on Florida Caves

CFAS member and past UCF Hominids Anonymous president, Dave Birnbaum and Anna Biggerstaff present on their work with the student organization.

CFAS President, Kevin Gidusko, presenting on community partnerships and research at the Oakland Nature Preserve.

The May 10 CFAS meeting will feature a presentation by Nathan Lawres, Archaeological Field Assistant with the Seminole Tribe of Florida Tribal Historic Preservation Office and M.A. candidate in anthropology at UCF.

Warfare is a topic that has received a high level of attention in the anthropological literature since the inception of the discipline. Much of the literature, however, has focused on the origins and causes of warfare rather than the behaviors associated with it. Throughout the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Europeans and Americans employed tactics and instituted laws that sought to subjugate Native Americans and appropriate their lands. The Muskoghean peoples, such as the Seminoles and the Creeks, of the southeastern United States resisted this process by employing a distinct set of behaviors during combat. These behaviors provided them with substantial success against both Europeans and Americans. This presentation highlights the complexity and adaptability of Seminole and Creek combat behaviors through a diachronic perspective of resistance to the expansion of the European and American states.

This presentation is free and open to the public. For more information contact Kevin Gidusko at kagidusko@hotmail.com or (321) 948-3994.

   Archaeology of the Lucayan Taino

The April CFAS meeting will feature a presentation by Dr. Peter Sinelli, Anthropology Instructor at the University of Central Florida. The indigenous Lucayan Taino people of the Bahama archipelago are perhaps best remembered for the role they played in a famous accident of history. In October 1492, they were the first Amerindians to encounter Christopher Columbus and his entourage in what was the first of many failed attempts by Europeans to reach Asia via the Atlantic. Although this singular event would eventually lead to the most profound cultural and biological exchange in human history, the Lucayan Taino are largely viewed as bit players on this grand stage—mere footnotes in the pages of history. The Lucayan Taino influenced the post-Columbian world system in ways that endure to this very day.

Dr. Peter T. Sinelli earned his MA (2001) and Ph.D. (2010) in Anthropology at the University of Florida and joined the faculty of University of Central Florida in 2005. His academic interests include human migration, island colonization, and the settlement strategies of maritime societies. His research focuses on the Lucayan Taino of the Bahama archipelago, where he has established ongoing field research projects on the islands of Eleuthera and Inagua. This presentation is free and open to the public. For more information contact Kevin Gidusko at kagidusko@hotmail.com or (321) 948-3994.

March is Florida Archaeology month with plenty events going on throughout the state.  Check out the new website for FAM!

Sunshine, Booze, and Monkeys: The Anthropology of Florida Tourism

The March meeting will feature a presentation by Jason Wenzel. Florida has attracted tourists for over a century and recent research in historical archaeology and ethnoprimatology helps provide us with a long-term understanding of how tourism has changed in response to various sociocultural processes. Archaeological excavations at two historic hotel sites provides us with direct material evidence into the daily lives of tourists at a former fishing lodge and an elite resort. In addition, documentary analysis of the postcards and brochures of early roadside attractions in Florida illuminates the ways in which nonhuman primates served as objects in the tourist gaze. By synthesizing this research, I will discuss how anthropology is in a unique position to critically assess how during the 1930s, tourism promoters took advantage of the re-legalization of alcohol and the popularity of primates as a means of attracting, and accommodating to a new market of working class, automobile-owning vacationers bound for Depression Era Florida. This presentation is free and open to the public.

Jason currently teaches for Valencia College and Brevard Community College and is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Florida.

For more information contact Kevin Gidusko at kagidusko@hotmail.com or (321) 948-3994.

For the next few months CFAS members have the opportunity to participate in field and lab activities under CFAS field director, Jason Wenzel.  Everyone is welcome, we only ask that you rsvp with me if you are planning on coming out.  Some lab days may have a cut-off for participants due to lack of space.  All dates are subject to change due to weather, time-constraints, or godzilla attacks.  If you would like to assist CFAS please email me (kagidusko@hotmail.com) with “CFAS” in the subject line.  All lab work will take place at the Oakland Nature Preserve and directions can be found at their website.  If cemetery recording will be taking place we will still meet at the ONP.  Thomas house volunteers will receive directions once they have rsvp’d.

January 21: Orientation at Oakland Nature Preserve 12:00-5:00pm
January 28: 9am-4pm Thomas House
February 4: TBA, 9am-4pm ONP lab or Oakland Cemetery
February 11: 9am-4pm Oakland Cemetery or ONP lab
February 18: Oakland Nature Preserve 9am-4pm (Lab, ONP Open House)
February 25: Oakland Cemetery or ONP lab
March 3-4: Fort Lane Park in Geneva (Seminole County) 10am-4pm.
March 24: TBA

Adventures in Northwest Florida Archaeology

Dr. Nancy White

The January CFAS meeting will feature a presentation by Dr. Nancy Marie White, Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida.  Her northwest Florida research is in the Apalachicola/Lower Chattahoochee Valley, a rich environmental and archaeological region.  Investigating 12,000 years of human culture has often involved high adventure in the field. Paleo-Indian settlement, with Clovis and other remains, was off the main river. Holocene river shifts led to Early Archaic change. Late Archaic had fiber-tempered pottery and connections with Poverty Point, westward across the Gulf. Mounds appeared in Early Woodland and were abundant during Middle Woodland, with both Swift Creek and early Weeden Island ceramics, lasting through A.D. 650. During Late Woodland maize cultivation began. The Fort Walton period represents Mississippian chiefdoms with a distinctive identity. Spanish invaders did not enter the region but a few of their artifacts did. Population collapse may have led to in-migration of foreign natives after 1700.  Later, Creeks from Alabama and Georgia moved in, to become Seminoles.  The region was important through the Civil War and in late nineteenth  century international commerce. Work at sites of all time periods has also involved lots of public archaeology.

This presentation is free and open to the public. For more information contact Kevin Gidusko at kagidusko@hotmail.com or (321) 948-3994.

Join us again this year for the annual CFAS potluck.  We will provide drinks, utensils, napkins and the like.  We ask that members bring a small snack or covered dish to share with the society.  Do you have a favorite recipe?  Too much extra holiday food sitting around?  Bring it on out and find some folks who will be happy to eat it for you.  We will be setting up early so feel free to stop on by as early as 6:15.  Happy holidays and we look forward to seeing you there!

     The December CFAS meeting will feature the annual holiday potluck (bring a dish or treat!) and the presentation “Traveling Between Worlds: An Archaeological Exploration of Complex Societies Research Based around Household Economies and Lithic Studies” by Lucas Martindale Johnson, a current PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Florida. Lucas will present data in the form of case studies from a small site in northern Ethiopia, Africa and another from a large Maya site in Belize, Central America. Both of these sites show evidence for intensive lithic reduction technology and this demonstrates that lithic reduction was an essential part of everyday life. Woven within the presentation will be stories from the field, methods and techniques of archaeological research, logistical challenges, and future research goals.

This presentation is free and open to the public. For more information contact Kevin Gidusko at kagidusko@hotmail.com or (321) 948-3994. The potluck will begin around 6:30pm with the speaker starting around 7pm.