Results in the report in 1965 and 1966 said the
collections found indicate that prehistoric
At right, artifacts found at
Indian Mounds.
indigenous people
resided at Paulsen Point
during the Transitional
Period of Florida's history,
approximately
1,000 BC.
Collections from the
Indian shell mound
include fossilized animal
bones, shells from
oysters, handmade shell
tools and hammering
tools and fragments of
nearly 27,000 pottery shards
of various designs. Other findings
in the shell midden include two pieces of
charcoal found in the lower black dirt zone, with an
estimate depth of six feet.
Among the pottery shards Bullen documented was
St. John’s Check Stamped pottery, classified as among
104 shards of imported decorated pottery and by
far the most decorated type of shards.
Bullen’s documentation concludes that natives did
inhabit the Sarasota County Mound during the
Transitional (1000 – 300 B.C.), Perico Island (300
B.C. – A.D. 500), Weeden Island II (A.D. 500 – 1350)
and very earliest part of the Safety Harbor (circa A.D.
1350) archaeological
time periods. His report
suggests the pottery
artifacts seemed to be
revolutionary art in “a
time of great changes in
the way of life of
aboriginal Florida.”
Bullen’s report also
said due to the size of
Paulsen Point and the
fact it lacks a burial
mound, it is prevented
from being considered
as a ceremonial center.
While there has been suggestion that the natives
may have performed at these ceremonial
centers, it would have been mostly for
entertainment purposes.
John McCarthy, executive director of Historic
Spanish Point, said the result of the mounds
formation was due to the early Florida natives,
adding spoilage, such as shells from seafood fish
and possibly from used fire pits, layering each
layer of spoilage over time.
Shell middens
on display at
Spanish Point
in Nokomis.
“A sand burial mound would not be called a
midden, because a midden is created from the
remains of eating and living. This means all the
shellfish and fish bones and other animal bones
laid down on the ground from being eaten by
the Indians, over time, become a midden,”
McCarthy said.
In an online academic essay produced by the
Florida Center for Instructional Technology, it says
that the Tocobaga Indians lived in small villages at
the northern end of Tampa Bay from
approximately 900 to the 1500s. Each village was
built around a public area that was used as a
meeting place and houses were “generally round
and built with wooden poles holding up a roof
of palm thatches.” In the essay, it states that the
Tocobaga tribe ate a lot of shellfish, indicating
that fish were their primary source of food.
Around 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez, a Spanish
explorer, arrived in the Tampa Bay area along with
his men. Their paths to the Tocobaga would
Tocobaga
Indians