Our scientists study archaeology and ethnography of North America, focusing on the Southeastern United States, Caribbean, and Latin America. We also have a strong environmental archaeology collection that includes modern comparative and archaeological specimens of zoological and botanical materials and archaeological soils.

Latest Research News

Research Highlights

Fort Mose: The First Free Black Settlement in North America

Dr. Deagan with Fort Mose artifacts
Dr. Kathleen Deagan with Fort Mose artifacts. Florida Museum photo by Eric Zamora

More than 250 years ago, African-born slaves risked their lives to escape English plantations in the Carolinas and find freedom among the Spanish living at St. Augustine, Florida. The Spanish freed the fugitives in return for their service to the king and their conversion to the Catholic faith.

In 1738 the Spanish governor established the runaways in their own fortified town, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, about two miles north of St. Augustine. Mose became the first legally sanctioned free black town in the present-day U.S. and it is a critically important site for Black American history.

After its abandonment, the Mose settlement lay forgotten until a team of specialists headed by Distinguished Curator of Historical Archaeology Kathleen Deagan uncovered the settlement and carried out extensive archaeological and historical investigations of the site.

Centuries-old documents recovered in the colonial archives of Spain, Florida, Cuba and South Carolina tell us who lived in Mose and something about what it was like to live there. The archaeological investigation of Fort Mose is helping to document the poorly understood role of African Americans on the colonial frontier.

Kingdom of the Calusa

Research conducted over the past 20 years by Curator of Florida Archaeology William Marquardt and Assistant Scientist Karen Walker has uncovered a culture that rivaled that of the Mound Builders of the Mississippi River valley and the great Native American maritime cultures of the Northwest Coast. The Calusa were once the most powerful people in South Florida. For many centuries they built huge shell mounds, engineered canals and sustained tens of thousands of people from the fish and shellfish found in the rich estuaries near Fort Myers.

Much of this research has focused on the Pineland site complex, a Calusa Indian village for more than 1,500 years where enormous shell mounds still overlook the waters of Pine Island Sound. Remnants of an ancient canal that reached across Pine Island sweep through the complex, while sand burial mounds stand in the woods.

Pineland is particularly important to archaeology and ecology due to its water-logged deposits, which have preserved ancient botanical remains found nowhere else in North America. Pineland also provides a key to understanding even larger issues. Its accumulated deposits record sea-level fluctuations and even climate changes of interest to scientists who study the Earth’s environmental history.

  • Bullard Collection One of the Florida Museum’s most important resources for Maya archaeology is a well-documented collection from the Petén Lakes region of Guatemala, excavated by William Bullard in the 1960s.
  • Caribbean Archaeology Field Research Sites Expedition and field research reports from sites in the Bahamas, Granda, Grand Cayman, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Turks and Caicos Islands.
  • Historical Period Archaeological Ceramics Searchable database of thousands of images of individual sherds, representing hundreds of different historic period (1492-1850) archaeological ceramic types and information about these specimens.
  • Historical Archaeology Research Programs Learn about research programs in Florida (St. Augustine, Fort Mose, Menendez Fort & Camp, Ximenez-Fatio house), the Dominican Republic (Concepcion de le Vega, La Isabela) and Haiti (En Bas Saline, Puerto Real).
  • Lake Monroe Outlet Midden Overview of a Middle-Late Archaic Period midden site on the northwestern shore of Lake Monroe in Volusia County, Florida, including animal and plant remains, soils and an image gallery.
  • Southwest Florida Project Research project in Southwest Florida, the Calusa heartland (Lee, Charlotte, and Collier counties) that examines the emergence of social and political complexity, human interaction with the environment and the nature of cultural genesis in the multi-ethnic, post-1492 New World.
  • St. Augustine: America’s Ancient City Trace life and society in Spanish St. Augustine through the excavated objects that people made, used, lost and discarded over the centuries.

Take an in-depth look at these topics available online only:

  • Artist-Naturalists in Florida Learn about 19th century naturalist’s travels in Florida, including John James Audubon, William Bartram and others.
  • Down Like Lead: 400 Years of Florida Shipwrecks The water surrounding Florida is a graveyard for thousands of ships. Today, these shipwrecks are time capsules that reflect the history of maritime trade, colonial expansion by sea, and the changing fortunes of European powers in the Americas.
  • Images of the Maya – Traditional woven textiles Explore the symbolism and history behind traditional Mayan woven textiles from the highlands of Chiapas Mexico.
  • St. Augustine: America’s Ancient City Much of St. Augustine’s history has been uncovered through archaeology in the homesites of its colonial residents. Trace life and society in Spanish St. Augustine through the excavated objects that people made, used, lost and discarded over the centuries.

Visit these Museum collection sites for more information:


Visiting the Florida Museum? These exhibits feature past and present cultures: