Fort Walton, the local variant of Mississippian culture in northwest Florida, has long been studied in the Apalachicola River Valley beginning in the early 1900s, most notably by Clarence B. Moore (though he did not call it Fort Walton), and has continued to intrigue archaeologists and collectors alike. Gordon Willey and Richard Woodbury were the first to create a ceramic chronology for the Florida Gulf Coast. Willey continued this work, resulting in the publication of Archeology of the Florida Gulf Coast, an impressive compilation of information on prehistoric cultures, sites, and their ceramic technologies and typologies. This book has continued to be most widely accepted reference for Fort Walton ceramics. This thesis builds on knowledge of ceramic seriations for the Apalachicola River Valley, working toward a more accurate chronology. Two sources of data are utilized in this study. Each comes from the Curlee Site (8Ja7), in Jackson County, Florida, just south of the Jim Woodruff Dam near the top of the Apalachicola River. The first, the Leon Perry Collection, is an unprovenienced collection donated to the University of South Florida. The second, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History Collection, consists of excavated data and materials collected in the late 1970s. Over 10,000 sherds were documented in the Leon Perry Collection. Type, weight, vessel shape, temper, and decorative attributes of each sherd were recorded. The type Fort Walton Incised in this collection revealed several variations of scroll designs increasingly varied through time. Commonalities were found between Lake Jackson Plain and Lake Jackson Incised types. These two should should be consolidated into one ceramic type. Ceramics from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History collection were reexamined by White and Yuellig in the spring of 2006 with consideration toward patterns found in Fort Walton Incised and Lake Jackson types in the Leon Perry Collection. Trends in the stratigraphic distribution of these patterns were documented in order to test whether they could result in better temporal control. This research serves as a case study in how knowledge gained from an unprovenienced collection can shed new light on archaeological data with temporal control.

The primary goal of this dissertation is to present an outline of the culture history of the site of La Milpa and its immediate sustaining area through the elaboration and elucidation of a ceramic chronology and typology. However, an equally important aspect of this dissertation is a thorough critique of the type-variety/mode (T-V) system of classification upon which Maya ceramic analysis has been based over the last forty years. The analysis presented here was completed using a relational database (Microsoft Access). By using this database program, it became clear that it is necessary to rethink the basis and use of the type-variety system and how (or whether) it can be adapted as a tool for use in database driven analysis.

Apesar de conhecidas arqueologicamente desde o século XIX e historicamente desde o início da conquista europeia, as cerâmicas filiadas à fase Aristé sempre tiveram maior repercussão quando provindas de contextos cerimoniais, devido à elaborada composição decorativa de seus materiais, bem como, o aspecto monumental e cerimonial destes sítios. As cerâmicas desta fase foram divididas em dois períodos cronológicos distintos: Ouanary Encoché e Enfer Polychrome, com profundidade cronológica de mais de um milênio, contudo esta divisão é baseada, principalmente, nos vestígios oriundos destes contextos especializados. Portanto, através desse trabalho busca-se verificar se esta divisão se mantém nos contextos domésticos e, uma vez verificada esta carência de dados empíricos oriundos destes contextos, procurar-se-á, com base nos resultados de escavações mecânicas, contribuir para uma arqueologia das unidades habitacionais filiadas à fase Aristé, através da correlação dos dados cerâmicos com os dados espaciais. Com esse fim, foram elaboradas as tipologias das cerâmicas e das estruturas antrópicas identificadas durante a escavação, permitindo sua interpretação através da análise espacial dos resultados, por fim, possibilitando a inferência de áreas de atividade e melhor compreensão desta fase arqueológica da costa atlântica do Amapá. / Although known archaeologically since the nineteenth century and historically since the European conquest, ceramics affiliated to Aristé phase always had greater impact when stemmed from ceremonial contexts, due to the elaborate decorative composition of their materials, as well as the monumental and ceremonial aspects of these sites. The ceramics of this phase were divided into two distinct chronological periods: Ouanary Encoché and Enfer Polychrome with chronological depth of more than a millennium, but this division is based mainly on traces originating from these specialized contexts. Therefore, this work seeks to verify if this division is maintained in domestic contexts and, once verified the lack of empirical data from these contexts, will be sought, based on the results of mechanical excavation, contribute to a household archeology of the Aristé phase by correlating ceramic data with spatial data. For this purpose were developed typologies of ceramics and anthropogenic structures identified during the excavation, allowing its interpretation through the spatial analysis of the results, at last, providing inferences of activities areas and a better understanding of this archaeological phase of the Atlantic coast of Amapá.

Apesar de conhecidas arqueologicamente desde o século XIX e historicamente desde o início da conquista europeia, as cerâmicas filiadas à fase Aristé sempre tiveram maior repercussão quando provindas de contextos cerimoniais, devido à elaborada composição decorativa de seus materiais, bem como, o aspecto monumental e cerimonial destes sítios. As cerâmicas desta fase foram divididas em dois períodos cronológicos distintos: Ouanary Encoché e Enfer Polychrome, com profundidade cronológica de mais de um milênio, contudo esta divisão é baseada, principalmente, nos vestígios oriundos destes contextos especializados. Portanto, através desse trabalho busca-se verificar se esta divisão se mantém nos contextos domésticos e, uma vez verificada esta carência de dados empíricos oriundos destes contextos, procurar-se-á, com base nos resultados de escavações mecânicas, contribuir para uma arqueologia das unidades habitacionais filiadas à fase Aristé, através da correlação dos dados cerâmicos com os dados espaciais. Com esse fim, foram elaboradas as tipologias das cerâmicas e das estruturas antrópicas identificadas durante a escavação, permitindo sua interpretação através da análise espacial dos resultados, por fim, possibilitando a inferência de áreas de atividade e melhor compreensão desta fase arqueológica da costa atlântica do Amapá. / Although known archaeologically since the nineteenth century and historically since the European conquest, ceramics affiliated to Aristé phase always had greater impact when stemmed from ceremonial contexts, due to the elaborate decorative composition of their materials, as well as the monumental and ceremonial aspects of these sites. The ceramics of this phase were divided into two distinct chronological periods: Ouanary Encoché and Enfer Polychrome with chronological depth of more than a millennium, but this division is based mainly on traces originating from these specialized contexts. Therefore, this work seeks to verify if this division is maintained in domestic contexts and, once verified the lack of empirical data from these contexts, will be sought, based on the results of mechanical excavation, contribute to a household archeology of the Aristé phase by correlating ceramic data with spatial data. For this purpose were developed typologies of ceramics and anthropogenic structures identified during the excavation, allowing its interpretation through the spatial analysis of the results, at last, providing inferences of activities areas and a better understanding of this archaeological phase of the Atlantic coast of Amapá.