Cedar Key and Gulf Hammock, Fl

[RWilson2526]

I mentioned on an earlier post that way back when I got my degree in Archaeology from University of Florida. We did a semester in Cedar Key where we stayed on Seahorse key off of Cedar Key. The university owns or leases the land and there is a 1800's lighthouse that we stayed in for the semester. After school I worked as a field tech for an environmental engineering firm that would survey areas for historical signifigance prior to development which had me working in SW florida, Marco Island area (Horrs Island) , did a plantation site outside Mt Pleasant SC. (Dunes West golf resort) as well as worked with some UF people with grant money in the gulf hammock area.

I just recently hooked up again with a friend from that time on Facebook and he posted all sorts of pics from Florida days...thought I'd throw them up here....really one of the most beautiful places in Fl in my opinion.



Seahorse Key light house








Seahorse key is one of the few active Pelican rookeries in Florida. The trees were full of Pelicans for 3 months.





The majority of excavations we did in FL was midden archaeology....many of you may already know but the southern regions have shell mounds (or middens as they are called technically) which was where the indiginous coastal people would throw their discarded shells and fish and whatever garbage they had into a pile...over many many years the middens could be 15-20' deep. Our job was basically to excavate a certain cubic feet of shells, record how deep they were taken in relation to each other and send them back to be analyzed....by sorting the stuff and identifying how many clams vs oysters etc and what type of fish bones and how much per layer you could tell seasons the stuff was harvested and diet and such......for us in the field though all we were doing was humping 50 lb bags of garbage out of the woods 10 hours a day.....

[RWilson2526]

That's me...always on the lookout for gators and snakes



Gulf Hammock region



That's my future wife...she was a volunteer on a project and I was a real paid archaeologist...who could resist me really?



The area is a national wildlife refuge....those wildlife officers were always hanging around when the chicks were there!



Thats me leading the way somewhere



We called our jeep the Red October.....




Stuck again....hooking up the come along.



That's me 30 lbs ago (at least) next to the guy in the straw hat.

[captpete13]

nice pics. Looks like a really beautiful area. Archaeologist... thats pretty cool. whenever I hear that word I think of Indiana Jones.

[phatdaddy]

great pics & story.. i need your professional opnion,i was talking to a lady the other day about shell mounds (we had a lot of them in bay county) and she said you never would find blue crab shells in them. the indians would not eat them. i found that hard to believe with crab meat being as good as it is. can you confirm or deny this info. i thought maybe the crabshells just decomposed faster.

[spareparts]

shame you couldn't have found a reason for them to not develop the Dunes West area. I think half of Ohio has moved in there.

[RWilson2526]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

great pics & story.. i need your professional opnion,i was talking to a lady the other day about shell mounds (we had a lot of them in bay county) and she said you never would find blue crab shells in them. the indians would not eat them. i found that hard to believe with crab meat being as good as it is. can you confirm or deny this info. i thought maybe the crabshells just decomposed faster.

Good question Daddy, got me really thinking....I have posed the question to 2 Phd's a masters grad and guy that has archaeological contracting company in Tampa....lets see what they say. It's been a long time and I cant say without certainty that there was no crab in the record that I worked with but it certainly did not stand out... being a crustacean it doesnt have the calcium that a mollusk shell has so its certainly not as durable but shell mounds are very non acidic (due to the shells) so I would think some would still be preserved under the right conditions. my guess is that much decayed and what did survive is generally crushed into pcs not recognizable from walking on the surface by the casual observer.....

I will guarantee you that there was no moratorium on blue crab harvesting and they ate those puppies.

[phatdaddy]

thanks for checking for me, i can't imagine them not being a food source, but maybe without garlic butter and old bay seasoning, they loose their appeal. most of the mounds in bay county were used in early road paving and no longer exist.