This research describes a large, newly-recorded archaeological site in the Upper Apalachicola River valley, northwest Florida, and a private collection of artifacts from it, as well as test excavations, three-dimensional modeling, clay/pottery sourcing through chemical analysis, and direct radiocarbon dating of ceramics to relate the site with regional archaeological chronologies and settlement patterns. A University of South Florida (USF) 2013 field school conducted excavations at the multicomponent midden on the western floodplain of the Apalachicola River called the McKinnie site (8JA1869). Students collaborated with a local collector and family members to learn about the site's history. Data from the collection and excavations show that the site was inhabited through four thousand years of prehistory, serving as a rich seasonal resource base for local people in the area starting in the Middle Archaic Period, and as a small place of occupation during the Woodland Period, until people moved out into the river valley to live in farming villages. We also investigated a series of fascinating features, stored in the private collection and excavated by USF, which may have been intentionally buried at the site up to 5500 years ago. They may be evidence of some ancient ochre processing to obtain pigments, or some other special activity.

The dawn of the eighteenth century in the Apalachicola delta region of the Florida panhandle was a time of major social upheaval that has been underexplored by current research. There are no historic records that describe the events and peoples in the region during establishment of the Spanish missions in the Tallahassee area to the east. Archaeological evidence shows the disappearance of the late prehistoric Mississippian Fort Walton people and the brief emergence of the protohistoric Lamar archaeological culture during the time of the destruction of the Spanish mission system around 1704. The Lighthouse Bayou site, 8Gu114, in Gulf County, has both a Fort Walton and a Lamar component, and therefore offers an opportunity to understand this tumultuous time period better. Comparison of the ceramics shows a transition from incised rectilinear scrolling motifs during Fort Walton to a series of incised and stamped designs, along with the emergence of check-stamping as common surface decorations during Lamar. Temper choices are further indicative: pottery of both components has extensive sand and grit tempering, with only limited shell- or grog-tempered vessels, suggesting that indigenous peoples here did not identify with the missionized Apalachee Indians. The lithic data, while limited, show that both the Fort Walton and Lamar inhabitants were more likely retouching existing tools rather than creating new ones; however, the proportion of flake types suggest that the Lamar inhabitants may have exploited chert to a greater extent than did their Fort Walton counterparts. The faunal data show considerable difference in food source exploitation strategies. The Fort Walton inhabitants used the Lighthouse Bayou site specifically to procure shellfish and fish, while the Lamar inhabitants made use of a wider variety of protein sources throughout the area. These differences suggest a contrast between the two time periods: Fort Walton existed under the relatively stable aegis of the late prehistoric Mississippian era. The Lamar people, while not Apalachee Indians, must have been another group fleeing the conflict amid the destruction of the Spanish missions and the general social collapse in Florida’s early eighteenth century.

A growing trend in Mississippian research in the archaeology of the southeastern United States stresses the need to shift away from categorizing generalizations (e.g., the concept of chiefdoms) that have been used to characterize Mississippi-period (A.D. 1000-1600) societies and advocates elucidating the unique occupational histories of Mississippian communities. This dissertation follows this trend with the goal of identifying and interpreting the particular historical and developmental trajectory of the Yon mound and village site (8Li2), a Fort Walton Mississippian site situated in the middle Apalachicola River valley, northwest Florida. Since its initial recording by Clarence Bloomfield Moore at the turn of the 20th century, Yon has been intermittently investigated by various researchers, but the data from these multiple investigations until now have been severely underreported or not reported at all. In this dissertation, these archaeological data from Yon are synthesized and used to identify the site's particular developmental history. The study proceeds through a careful examination of Yon's radiocarbon dates, artifact assemblage, platform mound construction, structural remains, and to a lesser extent, subsistence data, in an effort to tease apart its occupational components and contextualize them within the wider Fort Walton and Mississippian milieu. To this end, particular attention is given to the wider Fort Walton manifestation of the Apalachicola-lower Chattahoochee River valley and the Rood and later Lamar Mississippian regional variants that were located upriver from Yon in the upper reaches of the lower Chattahoochee River valley. This study demonstrates that Yon emerged rather precipitously as a Middle Fort Walton period center circa A.D.1200, a time marked by initial mound construction and the first intense village occupation at the site, which was preceded only by a very small, pre-Fort Walton, Swift Creek occupation there around A.D. 320. Probable antecedent events at a nearby Fort Walton mound center, Cayson (8Ca3), as well as contact with Rood Mississippian groups to the north are hypothesized as influencing Yon's Middle Fort Walton development and florescence. Evidence indicates that this initial Middle Fort Walton occupation was followed by an occupation of Lamar groups. Regional data and radiocarbon evidence from Yon suggest that this Lamar component likely began during protohistoric times (circa A.D. 1600) and continued into the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries. It is hypothesized that this Lamar occupation was the result of Lamar groups migrating down the lower Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River in the wake of European contact. As a whole, this study represents the most complete documentation of the occupational history of any Fort Walton mound center to date. As such, it can provide an important foundation for future studies of Fort Walton mound centers and sites in the Apalachicola-lower Chattahoochee River region.

The decades after World War II were a time of growth and change for queer people across the country. Many chose to move to major metropolitan centers in order to pursue a life of openness and be part of queer communities. However, those people only account for part of the story of queer history. Other queer people chose to stay in small towns and create their own queer spaces for socializing and community building. The Gulf Coast of Florida is a place where queer people chose to create queer community where they lived through such actions as private house parties and opening bars. The unique place of the Gulf Coast as a tourist destination allowed queer people to build and join communication networks that furthered the growth of a sense of community leading ultimately to the founding of Bay AIDS Services and Information Coalition in 1989.