Customer Reviews

Archaeology of Northern Florida, A.D. 200-900: The McKeithen Weeden Island Culture

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This book, a synthesis of the dig performed at the McKeithen site in northern Florida, is one of the best syntheses available about the Weeden Island culture, which flourished from 200 - 900 A.D., as the book title implies.

While the book is well written and extremely informative - virtually every aspect of the dig is covered in great and useful detail - the work raises a number of important questions which are left unanswered. What was the relationship, if any, of the Weeden Island culture to other contemporaneous archaeological cultures throughout the greater Southeast - for example, the Hopewell culture? Was the Weeden Island "culture", as defined by archaeologists, an actual cultural system or discrete group of people, or was it a system of belief that was shared by a number of Florida's tribes or chiefdoms? Since Weeden Island sites are located in areas where later groups were known to speak dissimilar languages, should we be speaking of a "culture" in considering Weeden Island artifacts?

As with any good work on archaeology, the work addresses what can be known about these issues - the chapter on Weeden Island symbolism and beliefs, based on pottery iconography, is among the best of the work. However, the issues raised by the book cry out for further study.

Despite these issues, however, the book is and remains a very important work for either the specialist in the Woodland period, or anyone interested in Southeastern archaeology. I highly recommend it.