Southeastern Indians

Sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts are uncommon but widespread finds in the Southeastern United States, and documented assemblages have been variously used by archaeologists either as secondary indicators of the presence of passing Spanish explorers, or also as evidence of direct or indirect Spanish trade. The vast majority of such artifacts are found as grave goods within Native American villages or burial sites, apart from a handful of well-documented Spanish colonial settlements and encampments. Archaeological investigations at the recently-discovered 1559-1561 Tristán de Luna settlement provide a remarkable opportunity to examine a substantial though short-lived residential Spanish assemblage dating to this same era.

Long-term research by the University of West Florida into the 1559-1561 expedition of Tristán de Luna y Arellano to Pensacola Bay has only accelerated following the 2015 discovery of Luna's terrestrial settlement and the 2016 discovery of a third shipwreck from Luna's fleet that wrecked just offshore. In addition to ongoing archaeological investigations in the field and lab, concurrent syntheses and analysis of both previously-known and several newly-discovered documentary sources relating to the expedition have provided important clues regarding Spanish-Native relations both in the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama. This paper presents preliminary analysis and insights from these documentary sources.

Excavations at the terrestrial settlement of Tristán de Luna y Arellano on Pensacola Bay suggest that the material culture of the colonists at the site between 1559 and 1561 included a significant amount of contemporaneous Native American ceramics evidently scavenged along with food from evacuated communities along the coast and interior. Combined with newly-discovered documentation detailing the establishment and use of a road between Pensacola and the temporary Spanish settlement at Nanipacana in central Alabama, and deteriorating Native-Spanish relations during this period, these new data offer important insights into the indigenous social geography of this region at a pivotal time.

In recent years several studies have attempted to understand the use of caffeinated beverages in North America before the coming of Europeans using absorbed residues. These studies have focused on the two key plant sources of caffeine in North America: Theobroma cacao (cacao) and Ilex vomitoria (yaupon holly). The authors initiated a study to explore the possibility that one or both plants were used at the Mississippian period (900e1600 CE) center of Etowah in northern Georgia. In the process, a series of problems with methodologies in use were revealed. Key among those were limitations on the methods used to identify ancient caffeinated beverage residues, distinguish them from modern contamination, and differentiate residues made by each plant. In this paper we explore what our data from the Etowah site reveal about methodologies currently in use and make suggestions for future studies of residues created by caffeinated beverages in North America.