Miami Circle Artifacts

IT IS MY BELIEF there have been many misleading press, web, and news accounts which have widely distorted the view of the Miami Circle in many peoples' minds. Some months have gone by since the Court injunction "closed" the "Phase One" excavation, as we might call it, and we have yet (so far as I know) to have some really interim overall definitive and rational review from "on high", though admittedly the Directors of the Dig certainly operate at "some difficulty" with their artifact inventories locked up (as we understand) and many other apparent distractions as well. Nevertheless, some counter must be raised to the prevailing "pop culture" views, and in a spirit of offsetting "press-type hype," I offer here some "first ever" (I think!) illustrations of recovered artifacts. No lost nuts and bolts from UFOs docking here for repairs or anything like that: just a few artifacts from the Tequestan and other cultures who have demonstrably sojourned in this spot in the past. (I prepared many of these based on the outstanding photography of Jack LaMont - "unofficial" Dig photographer - whose coverage, to my knowledge, constitutes one of the most complete such general photo coverages at the site to date). I hope also in accompanying and future articles to present further news and interpretations - pro and con - about this interesting site.

Fishline or net weights fashioned from the central "columellae" or long axis of marine whelks (gastropods). Alternatively, some may have served as personal adornment around the neck. Each has a small knob pecked and ground into one end, for attachment of a cord.

Numerous potsherds of aboriginal ceramics were recovered at 8DA12. There were several well-known Florida types. One was a check-stamped ware (left). The surfaces of these vessels bear the faint impressions of a regular grid pattern, not unlike a waffle grid design, which was carved into a flat wooden paddle which the potter then patted around the exterior of the vessel as she smoothed and compacted it. Another common ware was a utilitarian plain (undecorated) gritware (right), whose surface is shiny in the picture due to being wet when photographed.. All ceramics require "temper" to be mixed with the clay to inhibit cracks during the thermal shock of firing.. Grit was widely popular. The grit may plainly be seen breaking the surface of the sherd at right. At 8DA12, the plain ware present is thought to be early. An anomaly occurred in the midden in several instances where the later (younger) check-stamped wares were found apparently in situ below the level of the earlier plain wares. In fact, check-stamped wares were sometimes "cemented" right to the bare surface of the limestone by calcareous redepositions. Such inversions of the normal chronological sequence often record site disturbances or digging activities in the past.

These small barbed points may have been inserted in, or bound to, light shafts for taking fish or small game. Similar objects have been used in some cultures for "compound weapons" such as grails, leisters, etc.

A. Probable mandrel-wound (IMO) crude, opaque, green-glass "trade bead" of the "pony" type (size) and likely related to Spanish presence at 8DA12. B. A "gorge" made from a bone splinter. Some of these were further polished and refined; some were not. A very few bore a faint wear pattern or incipient groove at the mid-portion, possibly for the attachment of a line (arrow). Typically, these are used in fishing, where the impaled bait on the sharp-pointed splinter "jams" in the fish's throat when taken. I am no specialist in circum-Caribbean artifacts, but have wondered if some of them might also have served as nasal septum ornaments….? C. A "socketed bone point." A hollow bone fragment showing a sharpened point on a very acute angle worked into one end while the other hollow (socket) end permits insertion over a prepared shaft. Generically, such devices may be related to harpoons and tackle used by some primitive cultures for hunting in wet enviornments. D. A rimsherd of a clay vessel bearing arcuate thumbnail incisions (really punctations) and suggesting the local type Opalocka Incised. E. A shell pendant or weight. See previous. F. "Maya Axe". See previous. G. A celt or (probable) woodworking gouge made from a heavy section of whelk shell. Shows rounded, worked bit. Such tools were quite effective in working pithy tropical plants, and harder woods which had been previously charred. H. Perforated shark's tooth. These were numerous onsite and showed both unifacial drilling and bifacial drilling. The use is somewhat problematic: they may have served as ornamentation on clothing; their use in "necklaces" as would be almost an automatic assumption seems less likely: their edges are still razor-sharp! Alternatively, the Tequesta and others often made "compound tools" and weapons where insertions of such teeth in rows, say, in previously cut grooves in bone or wood, - each tooth bound separately in place with a thong - would provide a very serviceable saw or sharp-edged personal weapon.

Kaolin or "whiteclay" was a popular medium for smoking and trade pipes almost from the time tobacco was taken back to Europe by the explorers. Whiteclay pipes and pipe fragments (sometimes also "churchwarden" pipes) are ubiquitous in Contact and later sites throughout North America. This pipe bowl however (IMO) likely dates to the 19th Century at Brickell, and bears very obvious Irish motifs: the left side of the bowl (A) shows a shamrock motif, while the right side (B) shows a bas-reliefed harp, and below it clearly discernible even yet the word "Erin" (indicated at "a"). The spot where the long pipestem was broken off is indicated at "b". Interestingly, it is a study of the bore diameters of these pipestem holes to the closest 1/64th of an inch that has permitted dating such finds often within ten years of the year of actual manufacture!. Hopefully, some such study might yet be accorded the Miami specimen.

Two polished axes of this same general form and parts of a third were found onsite. Only one was in a tight context: it was in one of the many small "solution holes" just outside the eastern edge of the basin ring proper. I remember the occasion very well: I was digging right next to Mark, who found it, and he reached in and pulled it out about 1:30 one afternoon… it was just the instant that John Glenn, further upstate, was blasting off on his recent "Return-to-Space-flight". I remember thinking to myself: what a juxtaposition of time and cultures! The other axe and the fragments were recovered from disturbed overburden. They are all said to be basalt. They were enthusiastically referred to as "Maya-type" axes early on, and this was unfortunate as it added to unfounded (IMO) speculation that the Maya had somehow come here and built a sort of "astronomical stonehenge." Basalt axes of this same general form and type are very widespread throughout the Eastern Archaic in North America: many were made from stones quarried in the Appalachian chain.