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Green Mound is one of the largest pre-Columbian shell mounds, or shell middens, in the country. Located in Ponce Inlet, Florida, the peak of the mound is the highest elevation in the small city. While it once stood at an impressive fifty feet above sea level, a testament to the mound-building natives that once dwelled on the site, a combination of public works projects on the nearby roads and natural erosion have brought the height of the mound to approximately forty feet ¹.

The mound is thought to have been built by Native Americans in the late St. John’s period ², or after 800 AD. This was the period of time following the archaic period ³. The St. John’s Period was characterized by the introduction of mound-building and a more sedentary, rather than nomadic lifestyle. The natives that once lived at this location were closely tied to both the nearby Atlantic Ocean and resource-rich saltwater estuaries that are located in close proximity to the mound ¹. Built of a combination of discarded oyster, clam, and other debris, Green Mound bears witness to the primitive, yet highly structured lifestyle that its builders lived.

While studies of Florida shell middens date to the 1850s ⁴, initial studies of the Green Mound area were conducted in the early to mid 1940s by Archeologist Dr. John Griffin found that the mound was in fact inhabited by its builders and their subsequent generations ⁴. Later excavations have shown there to be multiple layers of clay floors, remnants of structural components such as post holes, and evidence of ash, fire pits and hearths at the site of the ancient civilization. It is thought that the dwellings that sat upon the mound were constructed of materials such as palmetto limbs and other local forms of timber such as oak. It is also inferred by leading archeologists that due to the social structures that existed during this time period, habitations on the top of the mound were reserved for the highest ranking members of the primitive society. The most likely inhabitants of these prime locations on top of the mound would have been tribal chiefs and religious leaders. Other members of the community would have lived in areas closer to ground level depending on their social status ¹.

Although knowledge of this primitive culture is obviously important to the understanding of pre-historical Florida, and presumably the rest of the Southeastern United States, the initial study of this area in and of itself is worthy of mention. Dr. John Griffin, in his extensive research into Green Mound and publication of the article entitled “Green Mound: A Chronological Yardstick,” set the modern-day precedents for study of Native American culture in the Southeastern United States.¹

[edit] notes

• Note 1: Volusia County Heritage, “Volusia County’s Rich Pre-historic Past,” <http://volusiahistory.com/richpast.htm> [1 February 2007]
• Note 2: Bullen, Ripley P. & Sleight, Frederick W., “Archeological Investigations of Green Mound, Florida,” American Antiquity, Vol. 27, No. 4. (Apr., 1962), 596-597
• Note 3: University of Florida, “The Lake Monroe Outlet Midden (8VO53):

An Overview of a Middle - Late Archaic Period Site in the Upper St. Johns River Valley,” <http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/monroe/overview.htm> [7 February 2007]

• Note 4: Griffin, John W., Fifty Years of Southeastern Archaeology: Selected Works of John W. Griffin, (Gainesville, Fla. University Press of Florida, 1996), 115-119