Kind of an odd place to find 17th century Spanish Majolica...

[Jolly Mon]

In Florida, a spring cleanup yields cornucopia of history - CNN.com


From the article:

"The discovery of fragments of a 17th century plate -- a Spanish ceramic -- also surprised the investigators, given that Citrus County is far from the nearest Spanish colonial settlement.

"I'm guessing that it was probably either intentionally dumped there or accidentally dropped in some sort of a trade route with the Native Americans." A more remote possibility is that a Spanish explorer may have visited the area and traded it to Native Americans there, he said."



I can think of another possibility given the location of the Chassahowitzka...

 

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[GatorBoy]

Springs like that were utilized by the natives for thousands of years.
They often cleared land and built their village sites near them.
After Europeans arrived they simply took advantage of what had already been established by the Native Americans so you wind up with one occupation after another leaving their items in the same place.
Its quite common.
It's all because of the spring.
People have collected native American artifacts...and other types in that location for many years.
There will be preserved bone and likely wood artifacts in that "muck" as well.
The Native tribes likely traded items from shipwrecks on the coast amongst themselves as well..many Spanish shipwreck artifacts have been found in native American settings far from the coast.

 

[Jolly Mon]

Springs like that were utilized by the natives for thousands of years.
They often cleared land and built their village sites near them.
After Europeans arrived they simply took advantage of what had already been established by the Native Americans so you wind up with one occupation after another leaving their items in the same place.
Its quite common.
It's all because of the spring.
People have collected native American artifacts...and other types in that location for many years.
There will be preserved bone and likely wood artifacts in that "muck" as well.
The Native tribes likely traded items from shipwrecks on the coast amongst themselves as well..many Spanish shipwreck artifacts have been found in native American settings far from the coast.

The reason for the density of artifacts at the Chassahowitzka Springs site and the wide variability in the age of the artifacts is clear.

Many shipwreck items were traded amongst Native Americans, especially "coin beads", but trade in ceramics seems to have been much less frequent---for whatever reason or reasons.

I am not an archaeologist, but I have read quite a bit of the literature and was unaware that 17th century Spanish Majolica was a common find at archaeological sites in Florida. As a matter of fact, I thought it was confined to the St. Augustine area and to a few mission sites through out the state (and former state).

Interestingly, John E. Worth, in The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida, Volume 1, states that ceramics were never included in goods traded or given to the natives as gifts during the period in question.

The genesis of the piece will probably never be known, but it may be a very small piece of a puzzle. It could have gotten the Spring's site by several different routes.

 

[GatorBoy]

I've personally found several on Native American sites as far south as Jupiter.
It's a known fact that the Ais helped recover goods for the Spanish 1715 fleet survivors as many were expert free divers.
I also know of one Village on the Treasure coast that in the 17th century Several Spanish lived together with Ais tribe members ..and lived as the Natives did.

 

[GatorBoy]

Some of the artifacts can be a very rare blend of both cultures.

 

[Jolly Mon]

I've personally found several on Native American sites as far south as Jupiter.
It's a known fact that the Ais helped recover goods for the Spanish 1715 fleet survivors as many were expert free divers.
I also know of one Village on the Treasure coast that in the 17th century Several Spanish lived together with Ais tribe members ..and lived as the Natives did.

I am not trying to pass myself off as an expert on majolica, but there doesn't seem to be much reference in the literature to Spanish majolica outside of St. Augustine or the Missions definitively datable prior to 1700. I am not saying it doesn't exist, but very sparingly it would seem, at least in the literature.

Frankly, I don't really understand the reference to the Ais and 1715 fleet salvage. Clearly the natives, including the Ais, salvaged Spanish shipping losses long before 1715.

All the majolica examples excavated from Indian River County listed in the FLMNH database are Guadalajara Polychrome and thus not positively datable prior to 1700.