Florida’s Archaeological Wet Sites

This chapter describes Florida's archaeological wet sites and assesses how each has given us a broader knowledge of past environments and human utilization of those environments. The Key Marco site, known also as the Court of the Pile Dwellers and the Cushing site, is situated in Collier County at the northern edge of the Ten Thousand Islands. The extreme biological diversity and abundance of this region have been amply documented. A thorough investigation of the excavations and the artifacts, including their present locations and conditions, was conducted by Marion S. Gilliland who later published an account of the controversies and personalities involved. Frank Hamilton Cushing's account of his excavation techniques at Key Marco has very likely been read and criticized by all professional archaeologists in Florida, especially those who have never worked at a wet site. There were few methodological procedures in 1896 that Cushing could use as a model.