Cataloguing Franciscan Missions of La Florida
FAIN: PW-234762-16
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)
Charles Richard Cobb (Project Director: July 2015 to November 2022)
Gifford Waters (Co Project Director: March 2016 to November 2022)
The development of an online archive of archaeological materials from three Franciscan mission sites in Florida that document contact between Native Americans and Spanish colonists during the 17th and 18th centuries. The project would catalog and digitize 61,000 artifacts, making them and associated field records, site maps, and photographs publicly available.
The development of a set of standard analytical procedures and a systematic cataloguing system for artifacts from Spanish mission sites. This will allow researchers to explore the missionization experience in the Spanish colony of La Florida based on a digital archive of artifact collections held by the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Associated Products
Lithic Technology at the Franciscan Missions of La Florida (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Lithic Technology at the Franciscan Missions of La Florida
Author: Charles Cobb
Author: Gifford Waters
Abstract: Lithic data have received sparse attention in research on the Franciscan missions of Spanish La Florida. We have attempted to correct this imbalance through our ongoing digital database project Cataloguing the Franciscan Missions of La Florida. This project involves a re-analysis of all of the collections (lithic and otherwise) from three seventeenth-century interior missions. Our study emphasizes the variability in tools and their manufacture both within and between mission communities. The research reveals that Timucuan Native Americans continued to rely on a diverse lithic technological tradition well after arrival of friars in their communities and the subsequent importation of metal tools. This persistence is also reflected in historical accounts where, for example, Native Americans were mandated to maintain quotas of arrows. Formal stone tool systems are manifested in the manufacture of bifacial projectile points and the unusual occurrence of a prismatic blade technology. A wide range of expedient flake tools was also an important component of the household. In addition to characterizing the lithic technologies on the sites, our presentation addresses the methodological challenges of developing an approach toward debitage analysis that allows for consistency between researchers with only modest experience in the study of lithic materials.
Date: 11/9/2017
Conference Name: 11th International Symposium on Knappable Materials
Lithic Communities of Practice at the Franciscan Missions of La Florida (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Lithic Communities of Practice at the Franciscan Missions of La Florida
Author: Charles Cobb
Author: Gifford Waters
Abstract: Lithic data have received sparse attention in research on the Franciscan missions of Spanish La Florida. A re-analysis of the collections from three seventeenth-century interior missions reveals that Native Americans continued to rely on a diverse lithic technological tradition well after arrival of friars in their communities and the subsequent importation of metal tools. This pattern is also reflected in historical accounts where, for example, Native Americans were mandated to maintain quotas of arrows. The use of formal and expedient stone tools constituted distinctive communities of practice for Timucuan groups, reflecting the persistence of Indigenous traditions well into the colonial era. We also discuss our digital archive project, The Comparative Missions Archaeological Portal, and how data from missions will be made available to the public.
Date: 01/05/2018
Conference Name: 51st Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology
Working Towards a Digital Database of Native American Mission Life Through the Comparative Mission Archaeological Project (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Working Towards a Digital Database of Native American Mission Life Through the Comparative Mission Archaeological Project
Author: Charles Cobb
Author: Gifford Waters
Abstract: The CMAP digital database will be made publicly accessible in the summer of 2019 via a free access web browser. Its development is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that is dedicated to building a web-based initiative to facilitate comparative archaeological research on mission sites. At this time, we are entering the data from three seventeenth-century Franciscan mission sites from the Spanish colony of La Florida.When entries are completed, approximately 60,000 artifacts will be in the database. There are a large number of attribute fields related to both qualitative and quantitative attributes of Native American and European ceramics, stone tools and debitage, and a variety of artifacts of European origin that include religious, architectural, and personal adornment objects. Pictures of modal artifact types as well as unusual or noteworthy objects also are included in the database. Supplementary information includes historical background on missions, histories of archaeological investigations, and excavation protocols.
Date: 03/08/2019
Conference Name: Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade Conference
Comparative Mission Archaeological Portal (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)Title: Comparative Mission Archaeological Portal
Author: Charles Cobb
Author: Gifford Waters
Abstract: The Comparative Mission Archaeology Portal (CMAP) digital database was developed in collaboration with the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS; www.daacs.org). It includes entries from about 60,000 artifacts from archaeological investigations at three seventeenth-century Franciscan mission sites in the Spanish colony of Florida. There are a large number of attribute fields related to both qualitative and quantitative attributes of Native American and European ceramics, stone tools and debitage, and a variety of artifacts of European origin that include religious, architectural, and personal adornment objects. Pictures of important artifact types as well as unusual or noteworthy objects also are included in the database. Supplementary information includes historical background on missions, histories of archaeological investigations, and excavation protocols. This database provides a rigorous standardization of data for the systematic and quantitative comparison of assemblages from multiple sites.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
http://cmap.floridamuseum.ufl.eduPrimary URL Description: This links to the open access website that allows viewing of contextual data and metadata related to the mission sites, and also provides for the downloading of archaeological data related to excavations at the sites.