The members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida are a central part of Florida's diverse culture and extensive history. Today's Florida Seminoles are the descendents of the mound-building chiefdoms that once prospered throughout the Southeast for over a thousand years in the EARLY YEARS of Florida's human past. It was these societies that first encountered the European explorers in the 1500s and 1600s. Ancestors of modern Seminoles adapted to the new social and biological challenges those Europeans brought, and, in the process, transformed into the historical Seminoles many are familiar with today.
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Such figurines, as well as shell carvings and earthen structures, represented the religious and political power exerted throughout the Southeast.
Many such artifacts found in Florida originated thousands of miles away, indicators of the extensive communication, cultural, and trade routes that existed centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
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Such structures, none of which survive today, give an indication of the power and size of Pre-Columbian cultures in the Southeast. The Apalachees were a powerful agricultural chiefdom that lived in the Big Bend area.
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Earthen and shell mounds such as this one on the East Coast once covered the southeast.
Symbols of both political and religious authority, each mound took thousands of hours to build and maintain and today are almost all that is left of the once powerful chiefdoms that thrived throughout the state.
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Carved out of pine sometime in the 1300s by the St. Johns culture, this figurine was discovered in the St. Johns River in Deland, Florida in 1955 by Victor Roepke.
Today, it is housed at the Fort Caroline National Monument in Jacksonville, Florida.
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This was thought to have been a vessel to hold the cremated remains of a political or religious leader in Pre-Columbian Florida.
In some communities, leaders were often thought to be deities. Some of the largest earthen mounds were essentially burial sites for such leaders.
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Many of Florida's shell mounds were excavated for both the valuable antiquities as well as for building materials for roads and buildings in the early 20th century. Much Pre-Columbian history was lost as a result.
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In 1964, Florida archaeologist Ripley Bullen discovered this limestone ceremonial stone (stele). While not all agree with his interpretation, Bullen believed this was purposely erected for ceremonial and celestial purposes
Located 75 yards east of the main burial complex, it dates to 440 A.D. A drawing of what Bullen believed was a human can be seen in this image.
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To date, this was the only verified site for the entire DeSoto expedition.
His expedition, along with other expeditions and settlements forever changed the Southeast by introducing new religions, forms of government, material culture, and most devastatingly new diseases.
Ancestors to modern-day Seminoles were forced to change and adapt to these new circumstances.