CERTAIN ABORICINAL REMAINS OF THE XW. FLORIDA COAST. 351 



The srrowino; influence of Georo'ia in decoration became noticeable also, the com- 

 plicated stamp, the specialty of that State and of territory to the northward, coming 

 more and more into use. Such being the case, we should look for the clay tempered 

 with coarse gravel, the well-known •• gritty ware " of Georgia, but it is not present. 



The earthenware of the northwest Florida coast is purely aboriginal in style. 

 Probably- most of the mounds there ante-dated the coming of the whites, and where 

 they did not, their builders saw too little of the strangers to suflFer modification in 

 their art. It is true that some writers have cited the presence of feet on aboriginal 

 vessels as an indication of European influence, and such vessels are often met Avith 

 in the mounds of the northwest coast, but we have seen vessels with feet, in various 

 localities, in too many mounds in which no European artifacts were found, to coin- 

 cide with this idea. 



In material and decoration the pottery of the Florida northwest coast averages 

 far above that of such mounds of peninsular Florida, in which earthenware is met 

 with. 



For one reason or another, the occurrence of earthenware vessels is infrequent 

 in the burial mounds of the coast of peninsular Florida. We have searched almost 

 the entire east coast between the Georgia boundary and Lake Worth without find- 

 ing a single vessel, and our good friend, the late Andrew E. Douglass, devoted many 

 seasons to mound work along the east coast, going even as far as Miami, with a like 

 result. 



On the west coast, Mr. Gushing found fragments of important vessels in the 

 mound opened by him at Tarpon Springs, but from near that point southward, almost 

 to the end of the peninsula, we saw not a single vessel of earthenware, though there 

 are a few fragments in the shell-heaps. 



It is true Mr. Gushing found several vessels of earthenware in the muck at 

 Marco, with his great discovery of objects of wood, but the vessels were few in num- 

 ber and unimportant as to shape and decoration. 



Presumabl}', then, the custom to inter earthenware vessels with the dead 

 obtained but little, if at all, along the Florida east coast, and the lower half of the 

 west coast of peninsular Florida. If, in these districts, vessels to an}- extent were 

 put into the mounds, these vessels were of wood and perishable. 



Superior as is the earthenware of the northwest Florida coast to most of that of 

 the peninsula, it does not excel a few of the finest specimens met with b}- us in the 

 mounds of the St. Johns river. A duck-vessel ' from near the mouth of the St. Johns ; 

 sherds of excellent paste and superior decoration, from near Dunn's creek" (see out- 

 line map) ; still more beautiful ones from a neighboring mound ; part of a vessel 

 and a handle representing a vulture's head, beautifully incised and showing the fine 

 yellow of the paste, alternating with crimson pigment, from a mound near Lake 

 Monroe, hold their own with the finest earthen\vare of the northwest coast of Florida. 



' "Certaiu Sand Mounds of Duval County, Florida." Plate LXXXIII. 



2 "Certain Sand Mounds of the St. Johns River." Part I, Pi. II, Fig. 1. Incidentally, at this 

 mound was the southernmost occurrence of ware bearing the complicated stamp decoration. 



