About 400 years ago, members of the Potano Timucua people hand-shaped a small clay vessel. Compact enough to fit in the palm of a hand, the pot features a simple rim, a smooth, dull-gray surface, and no decoration. Its original purpose—and the identity of the people who used it—remains unknown. Archaeologists do know that the vessel survived underground for centuries and stayed completely intact until University of Florida students discovered it earlier this year at Mission San Francisco de Potano.
“It’s very unique,” said Gifford Waters, historical and archaeological collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “Normally, you find things that have been broken or discarded. Why would someone go to the trouble of placing a vessel in a hole if they didn’t leave something usable behind?”
Waters discovered the intact artifact while working with a collection of shipwreck materials, where complete objects are more common. However, this was the first time in his career that he had helped excavate an intact ceramic vessel from an above-ground archaeological site. Even pottery that remains whole underground can develop cracks over centuries as soil shifts because of natural pressure, farming, construction, and other disturbances.
Students excavate a centuries-old Florida mission
The discovery was made by students enrolled in a field course taught by Waters and Charles Cobb, the Florida Museum’s curator of history and archaeology. Each Friday during the spring semester, students learn basic archaeological excavation techniques while investigating Mission San Francisco de Potano, a centuries-old archaeological site in northwest Gainesville, Florida.
The former Spanish mission is now a wooded area marked by a 1-by-1-meter, or approximately 3-by-3-foot, excavation unit. Students carefully remove soil with trowels along a path between the remains of a 17th-century kitchen, a former friar’s residence, and the surrounding Potano village.
The Potano were part of the Timucua people who lived in northern Florida. They moved to the area in 1585 after Spanish troops forced them from their previous homeland. The village was likely located somewhere between present-day Payne’s Prairie and Orange Lake.
In 1606, Spain sent friars to the Potano village to establish a mission. Mission San Francisco de Potano became one of the earliest of more than 100 Catholic missions established during the century-long period of Spanish control in Florida. The mission was abandoned in 1706, and physical evidence of the settlement gradually disappeared until archaeologists began finding artifacts there in the 1950s.
Thousands of artifacts reveal everyday life at Mission San Francisco de Potano
At its height, the Potano village may have been home to several hundred residents, while the mission itself housed only one European resident—a friar. This population balance helps explain why most of the more than 7,000 artifacts recovered from the site since 2006 are fragments of Native American pottery.
Other discoveries include glass beads, stone tools, nails, and animal bones from foods such as turtles, freshwater fish, and turkeys.
“What tells us the most is not just the artifacts, but the evidence of activity. It’s great to know that there are so many bone fragments at the site, but the fact that almost all of them came from one location indicates that it was a cooking area and a garbage dump,” Waters said. “It’s not just the artifacts themselves, but where they were found, how they were distributed, and what they were associated with that tells the story.”
For archaeologists, an artifact’s location and relationship to nearby discoveries can be as informative as the object itself. Although the intact ceramic vessel offers few direct clues about how it was used, its archaeological context adds another detail to the broader history being reconstructed at the mission site.
Intact pottery vessel discovered inside a mysterious Spanish structure
The vessel was found inside a structure built by the Spanish, although the building’s original purpose has not yet been determined. Additional excavation will be necessary to establish what happened there.
Historical records indicate that a small military garrison was stationed at the mission in the early 1700s, after frequent British attacks on Spanish missions in Florida. One possibility is that the structure served as a barracks. A gun rear sight and musket side plate discovered nearby offer some support for that interpretation.
The vessel’s depth and location suggest that it was probably made during the mission’s occupation, which lasted roughly a century. However, archaeologists have not yet identified its specific pottery style, and its function remains unclear.
Cooking vessels often contain traces of burned food or charcoal. Because this pot had no such residue, researchers believe it was probably not placed directly over a fire for cooking.
Even so, the vessel may have been associated with food preparation or serving. Faint scorch marks could have formed during the original firing process, or they may have developed later if the container was placed near a fire to warm food.
Pottery reveals trade, migration, and cultural change
Shortly after finding the intact vessel, the students uncovered a second, much larger pottery fragment with a dramatically different appearance.
Unlike the small pot’s smooth surface, the larger vessel is rough, and its materials do not appear to match established local pottery traditions. Archaeologists believe it may have arrived through trade with communities in St. Augustine or present-day Jacksonville. Another possibility is that new residents brought different pottery-making traditions to the settlement.
These contrasting artifacts show that the Potano village was connected to wider networks of travel, trade, and cultural exchange. People, objects, and ideas moved through the community, leaving behind physical evidence that archaeologists can still study centuries later.
“Later in the mission’s history, people from different parts of Florida, as well as Native Americans from other regions, settled in and around the ruins. It’s really exciting to see those differences and connections in the artifacts,” Waters said. “It shows both the persistence of tradition and the ways traditions changed over time.”
Source: www.sciencedaily.com