Turner River Site - Wikipedia


Turner River Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places

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Location	Collier County, Florida
Nearest city	Chokoloskee
Coordinates	25°54′N 81°18′W / 25.90°N 81.30°W / 25.90; -81.30
NRHP reference No.	78000263^[1]
Added to NRHP	December 14, 1978

The Turner River Site (8CR8) is an archaeological site in the Ten Thousand Islands region of Everglades National Park, in Florida. It is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

The Turner River Site is a large shell works site .5 miles (0.80 km) from the mouth of the Turner River, near Chokoloskee Island. The site covers 30 acres (12 ha) and is .25 miles (0.40 km) long. It has at least 30 closely spaced mounds. The site was the first in the Ten Thousand Islands area to be excavated by professional archaeologists.^[2]^[3]

The Turner River Site came to the attention of archaeologists in 1900. Aleš Hrdlička visited the site in 1918. He declared it to be "important to science", and urged that it be made a "national reservation." William H. Sears conducted the first excavation by a professional archaeologist in 1955. He noted structural features similar to those found at Key Marco and Chokoloskee Island, and concluded that the region was an "important prehistoric population center." Sears found muck with midden materials between the mounds and on the lower slopes of the mounds, but the bulk of the mounds were clean shell deposits, almost entirely made up of small oyster shells, which had been placed on submerged mud flats. Based on dating of potsherds found at the site, Sears concluded that the residents of the site had lived on the edge of the river, moving the village towards the water as the mounds built up behind them. All of the potsherds collected at the site were assigned to the Glades I and II periods, placing occupation of the site in the period from about 200 or 100 BCE to 800 or 900 CE.^[4]

The Turner River Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.^[5]

Citations

[edit]

^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
^ "Park Celebrates Archaeology Month with Turner River Tour March 28 and 29". National Park Service. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
^ Sears 1956, p. 47.
^ Sears 1956, pp. 47, 50, 52–53, 58, 59.
^ "Florida - Collier County". National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved January 30, 2024.

References

[edit]

Sears, William H. (June 1956). "The Turner River Site, Collier County, Florida". The Florida Anthropologist. IX (2): 47–60 – via University of Florida Digital Collections.

v t e National Register of Historic Places in Everglades National Park
National Historic Landmarks	Mud Lake Canal
Historic districts	Bear Lake Mounds Archeological District Monroe Lake Archeological District Shark River Slough Archeological District Ten Thousand Islands Archeological District
NRHP properties	Anhinga Trail Cane Patch Nike Missile Site HM-69 Rookery Mound Ted Smallwood Store Turner River Site
See also: National Register of Historic Places listings in Everglades National Park

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v t e Indigenous peoples of Pre-Columbian Florida
Periods Paleoindians Archaic period Post-Archaic period
Archaeological cultures	Alachua Belle Glade Cades Pond Caloosahatchee Clovis Deptford Fort Walton Glades Leon-Jefferson Manasota Mount Taylor Norwood Orange period Paleo-Indians Pensacola Safety Harbor Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Suwannee Valley Swift Creek Weeden Island McKeithen North peninsular Gulf coast
Archaeological sites	Apalachee Bay Aqui Esta Burial Mound Bay Pines Bear Lake Mounds Big Heart West Big Mound City Big Mound Key-Boggess Ridge Bird Hammock Blueberry Bowers Bluff Middens Bubba Midden Burns Lake Butcherpen Mound Cayo Pelau Cayson Mound and Village C. J. Ostl Crystal River Cutler Demere Key Devil's Den Cave Dismal Key Douglass Beach Fort Center Fort Walton Mound Galt Island Garden Patch Green Mound Halfway Creek Helen Blazes Hickory Ridge Cemetery Hinson Mounds Horr's Island Indian Fields J&J Hunt Josslyn Island Jungle Prada Key Marco Kimball Island Midden Lake Jackson Mounds Lake Pithlachocco Letchworth-Love Mounds Little Salt Spring Madira Bickel Mound Mark Pardo Shellworks Miami Circle Mill Cove Monroe Lake Mound Key Mount Elizabeth Mount Royal Mount Taylor Mullet Key Myakkahatchee Creek Naval Live Oaks Cemetery Nocoroco Ormond Mound Ortona Prehistoric Village Otis Hare Page-Ladson Persimmon Mound Pierce Pineland Platt Island Plaza Pompano Beach Mound Portavant Mound Porter's Bar Princess Mound River Styx Roberts Island Rock Mound Rookery Mound Ross Hammock Safety Harbor Shark River Slough Shell Bluff Landing Spruce Creek Third Gulf Breeze Thomas Creek Turner River Turtle Mound Twin Mounds Upper Tampa Bay Useppa Island Velda Mound Waddells Mill Pond Wakulla Springs Yent Mound Yon Mound and Village
Human remains	Manasota Key Offshore Melbourne Man Vero man Warm Mineral Springs Windover
Miscellaneous	Beaver Lake point Indigenous peoples of the Everglades region Protection of Native American sites in Florida Shell ring List of shell ring sites#Florida Shell works Simpson point Suwannee point
Related Pre-Columbian era