As we approach the top, marks of improvement are numerous. All the larger pots are furnished with numerous ears, through which strings might be run for suspension. Vessels are sometimes furnished with handles, and all the finer wares are elaborately ornamented with zigzag lines, curves, dots, and, in rare cases, with figures of men and animals. The finest wares are invariably found on or near the surface, and among them we find the first attempt at coloring their work.
We thus observe that from the testimony of the pottery the age of the shell-heaps is divided into three distinct periods, which may be styled the ancient, the middle, and the modern, which are further divided by two periods of transition, the latter of which is marked by the stratum of soil representing a period of two hundred years. Assuming that the march of improvement was uniform, and seeing that a period of over two hundred years[1] was occupied in a transition from the middle period to the modern, I think we might be safe in attributing a period of at least two hundred years to each of the five eras mentioned above. This would give one thou s a Lid years for the age of the oldest shell-heaps.
I might properly extend this time much beyond these figures, as there are many shell-heaps which were abandoned fully as long as this upon which there is no accumulation of soil, or at best but little, so it would seem that I have adopted the smallest period of time necessary to a correct calculation, still these calculations may be far from the truth. There are so many possibilities to be encountered that the question of age is lost among them. The growth of a shell-heap depended, of course, upon the number of people living in the vicinity, whether their residence was continuous or occasional, the abundance or scarcity of shell-fish, and many other accidents too numerous to mention. Layers of soil in different portions of the same heap show that portions of the mass ceased to grow for long periods of time, while thick strata of clean shell indicate the rapid and continuous growth of other portions. Future investigations may throw more light on this subject at present involved in doubt and mystery.
The key to the whole matter is a critical study of ancient pottery. That the aborigines of Florida reached the state of advancement in which they were found by the Europeans by slow and painful steps is evident to the most superficial observer. That they did advance is equally plain. According to the estimate of time made in this paper it was three hundred years before they thought of ornamenting moist clay with lines and dots, and five hundred years before they thought of making ears to pots. Dishes and bowls were not thought of for eight hundred years, and cups with handles for nearly one thousand. Still they progressed, and who can say what point their civilization might have reached had the discovery by Columbus been delayed another thousand years!
- ↑ I say "over two hundred years," because this transition began in the latter years of the middle period and continued in the earlier years of the modern period.
