so. 13 ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA — FEWKES 25 



The author has discussed in the preceding pages the more important 

 objects excavated at the Weeden Mound in 1923-24, but a large 

 number of additional specimens still remain in St. Petersburg await- 

 ing their place in the final report. 



Columbus on his first voyage cruised along the northern coast of 

 Cuba and there learned of a tribe called Guanahatibibes, who lived 

 in caves. These were the original or oldest inhabitants of Cuba. 

 The Tainan culture of the eastern end of this island was later and 

 exotic. Mr. M. R. Harrington has shown in his valuable contribution 

 on " Cuba Before Columbus " ^ that the Guanahatibibes or Ciboney 

 artifacts continue under those of the Tainan or pottery makers of 

 the east end of the island ; in other words, there is good evidence 

 that the original population of Cuba was much more primitive in 

 culture than the later, as the author has pointed out in his paper 

 on the "Archaeology of Cuba." Later observations suggest that the 

 lowest layer, or Ciboney culture above mentioned, was also repre- 

 sented in other West Indian shell heaps. This archaic culture dis- 

 tinguished by little or no ceramics has been detected in Cuba, Haiti, 

 Porto Rico, the Lesser Antilles, and elsewhere, and when Columbus 

 landed on the West Indies survivors of it were still represented on 

 these islands. 



There was a close likeness between the original or archaic popula- 

 tion of Florida south of a line from the east coast to Charlotte Harbor 

 on the west coast, and the earliest population of the West Indies ; 

 and the evidence is fairly good that the archaic culture of the 

 Greater Antilles extended over the northern portion of the peninsula 

 of Florida under a superficial Muskhogean or later development. The 

 question now arises, did the lower or older culture migrate to Florida 

 from the West Indies, or was it autochthonous both in Florida and 

 the West Indies. 



The designs used in the decoration of the pottery of the upper 

 layer as here illustrated in Weeden Island are of wide extension 

 northward, and the important question to consider is whether the 

 lower layer which indicates the earliest culture is an extension of 

 a northern people from the continent southward or a southern 

 culture from the West Indies into the peninsula of Florida. Certain 

 facts lead the author to associate closely the Floridian and Caribbean 

 archaic cultures. 



There is no likeness between the decorated pottery of Weeden 

 Island and the so-called Tainan ware of the Antilles. Whatever 



^ Indian Notes and Monographs, 1921. 



