ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XXVII 



During February the work was pushed into the region of 

 coral islands in the neighborhood of Punta Rassa, where traces 

 of extensive aboriginal handiwork were found on the islands, 

 and esi)ecially in ancient atolls and lagoons lined with bogs 

 and saline marl. Here the works were of such character as to 

 indicate an extensive and well-organized pi'imitive population, 

 subsisting on sea food, and cruising not only the lagoons and 

 bavs but also the open gulf. Their island domiciles were pro- 

 tected by dikes built of large sea shells, evidently collected 

 for the purpose; their liabitations, at least in part, were pile 

 structures, ruins of which still remain. In some cases these 

 structures were occupied so long that the kitchen refuse accu- 

 mulated to form mounds (initiating in time the custom of erect- 

 ing naounds as sites for domiciles), and within the refuse heaps, 

 or midden-mounds, extensive traces of handiwork of the peo- 

 ple were found. 



The most extensive collections were made from bogs adja- 

 cent to the habitations, or beneath liabitations occupied too 

 briefly to permit extensive accumulations of middens. In 

 these bogs were preserved numerous artifacts, comprising 

 shellwork in large variety; wooden ware, including utensils, 

 tools, weapons, masks, and other ceremonial objects, often 

 elaborately carved and painted; textile fabrics and basketry in 

 abundance, though usually in such a state of decay as hardly 

 to be preservable; implements and other objects made partly or 

 wholly of teeth and bone of sharks, land animals, etc.; and a 

 few stone implements of the usual aboriginal character. The 

 painting and carving are especially noteworthy, not only as 

 indicating moderately advanced symbolic art of the native 

 type, but as suggesting community of culture between the 

 maritime people of Florida and prehistoric peoples of the 

 western and southern shores of the Gulf of i\Iexico. The 

 handiwork shows no trace of Caucasian influence, and must 

 therefore be reg'arded as ]ire-Coluinbian, though the mode 

 of life indicated by the relics is similar to that observed on 

 the Florida peninsula by the earliest white explorers. The 

 wooden ware, textiles, etc., preserved in the salt-water bogs 

 commonly retained their aboriginal appearance until exposed 

 to the air, when they rapidly disintegrated and fell to pieces. 



