Indian Mounds - Tampa Bay
(By Mac Perry)
Manatee County has an impressive mound complex called the Portavant Mound.
Here you will see stately royal palms, twilight bats, and a jungle
of marlberry trees covering the many mounds that overlook the mouth of the
Manatee River. Most impressive is the large temple mound with a 150-foot
flat top that once held a modern home and cistern. A boardwalk will take
you to the top where you can read about the site. Be sure to follow the
trail that leads over and around the horseshoe-shaped middens that end at
the water. Notice how storm tides are eroding the midden at the water’s
edge. The most unusual thing about this site is that the temple mound has
a subsidiary mound, a smaller, lower flat-top mound attached to the NW
corner. Subsidiary mounds are rare in the US and no one knows for sure
what they were used for. To get to the site, head west out of Palmetto on
10th Street, cross the bridge, turn right and look for the sign
to the park on Snead Island.
Or you can take a tour to the site by hooking up with historian/naturalist
Karen Fraley of "Around the Bend Nature Tours".
Karen teaches about the cultural and environmental
history of the mounds, the Indians, and the plants and animals found
there.
Just north of Palmetto on Terra Ceia Island follow
the sign west from US 19 to the Madiera Bickle Mound. A 40-foot wide
burial mounds sits at the head of the trail. It dates to about AD 800 and
has a sign reminding visitors that these sites are protected by Florida
law. Please do not disturb. Follow the trail through a thicket of cabbage
palms (our state tree) to where a stepped ramp (the only curved one in
Tampa Bay) leads up the flat-top temple mound ( photo.) You
may smell the skunk-like odor of White Stopper trees growing on the mound
and will surely see the flaking bark of Gumbo Limbos (called Tourist Trees
because of their peeling red skin.) Archaeologists tell us the mound
stands 20 feet tall and the original flat top where the chief lived was 25
by 68 feet.
Before leaving Manatee County, be sure to see the splendid Florida
Indian exhibit and pottery collection at the South Florida Museum at the
intersection of US 19 and SR 64 in Bradenton. Then drive west on 64 to
north on 75th Street to the DeSoto National Memorial where you’ll
see remnants of Indian mounds (along the beach and under the monument), a
tourist center with Spanish exhibit, and a short movie about the 600-man
(and women) DeSoto expedition that landed in the vicinity in 1539.
Hillsborough County once had many Indian mounds but because of an over
active bull dozer in the highly populated area, they are either gone or
inaccessible. You can read about them in Indian
Mounds You Can Visit. Archaeological excavations at the Fort
Brooke Parking Garage downtown did show that occupation there began in
8,000 BC. Where were you in 8,000 BC? You’ll find Florida Indian
exhibits at the Tampa Bay History Center in the Convention Center Annex,
225 South Franklin Street and at the Upper Tampa Bay Park south of SR 580.
Pinellas County is loaded with Indian mounds you can visit. First there
is the Maximo Point Site (illustrated under Bizarre/Tocobaga.)
Enter Maximo Park just NW of the Skyway Bridge, park, and walk to the
tower along the beach. In the nearby woods is a nature trail that runs
along the top of the old midden. If you look close you’ll see that the
mound runs 1200 feet along the shore from the woods through the picnic
area. Once, it crossed I-275 to the east. The temple mound and
horseshoe-shaped midden are gone now. Archaeologists say the village was
occupied in AD 800 but can’t explain why a village on such productive
waters was abandoned around 1400.
A couple of
miles to the east on 62nd Avenue South, turn south onto 20th
Street till you run into the Pinellas Point Temple Mound. Walk to the top
and sit on the bench. If you look close you can still see where the
30-foot-wide ramp once ran down the south side. The mound where the chief
once lived was measured at 16 feet tall and had a flat top 103 feet
across. There are two historical markers at the site ( photo.)
At 17th Avenue North and Park Street in St Pete you’ll
find the Jungle Prada Mound in a city park. There are actually two mounds
in this serene woods overlooking Boca Ciega Bay. A small mound with what
appears to be a ramp running south may have served as a domiciliary mound.
And there is the south end of a 900-foot long midden that once ran along
Park Street. Many believe the flat south end of this midden could have
held a temple for the chief. An archaeological dig made on the privately
owned section next door to the park revealed the site to have been
occupied between AD1000 to 1600. Spanish pottery sherds and Spanish beads
were found near the top of the test pit. This is the village allegedly
visited by the 600-man Narváez expedition in 1528. My historical novels Black
Conquistador and Children of the Sun
tell this amazing story.
Lynda Faye and I live on the Bayshore Home Midden at the
southwest corner of Tyrone Blvd. and Park Street. It’s all that is left
of the village illustrated by Dean Quigley on the Education
Page. The midden along the shore runs up and down for several blocks
south of our house. Homes sit on top of it just like they did a thousand
years ago. Archaeological investigations showed that this village had
three different occupations between AD 800 and 1100. The temple mound,
perhaps the first in Tampa Bay, was destroyed when the neighborhood was
built. In 1957, a physical anthropologist exhumed 118 skeletons from the
burial mound for study. He wrote that the Indian’s teeth were worn in
half (perhaps from cracking oysters or handling rope) but had no cavities
(indicating that sweet corn was not grown in the area.) He said the
Indians were muscular, a little heavy, had wide spread toes, and walked on
the outside of their feet. The men averaged 5’6" and the women 5’.
The older people had arthritis, especially in their back, and many had
syphilis. Most had died from a bone disease. 34 of them were children, and
a few had been cremated. The remains of this burial site are now protected
under the parking lot at Lighthouse Point. Today, Florida laws and moral
correctness prevent exhuming skeletons of any age or race. No one knows
why this village was abandoned long before the Europeans arrived.
The Safety Harbor Temple Mound is the home mound of Chief Tocobaga
himself. It can be seen in Philippe Park in Safety Harbor. It was here
that Menendez brought Chief Carlos to meet Tocobaga in 1565. Chief
Tocobaga summoned 29 sub-chiefs from surrounding villages for the event.
That gives us a hint as to how many villages were around Tampa Bay in the
16th century. In 1880, the mound base was measured at 146 feet
by 162 feet and was 20 feet tall. Climb to the top of the mound and see
what Tocobaga saw every morning when he woke up. In 1948, archaeologists
found post holes and 2700 pottery sherds that date the site from about
1200 to 1600.
While in Pinellas County, be sure to see the Florida Indian exhibits at
the St. Petersburg Museum of History at the Pier in downtown St Pete, the
Safety Harbor Museum at 329 Bayshore Blvd. and at Bay Pines Medical Center
lobby in Bay Pines.
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