The ritual uses of lithic raw materials during the Woodland period, Fort Center, Southern Florida

Abstract

Among traditional societies, goods acquired from a geographic distance, particularly those that are colorful and lustrous, often are imbued with symbolic power that enhances their use value among recipients. I examine this issue from an economic perspective using an assemblage of chipped stone tools from Woodland-period contexts at Fort Center, a large earthworks site in southern Florida where lithic raw material is non-existent. Raw-material sourcing indicates that stone tools were imported from afar or were scavenged from nearby sites. Archaic-style hafted bifaces (projectile points), particularly those made from thermally-altered silicified coral, have a significant association with mortuary-related contexts. I argue that the symbolic value of the artifacts resided in their geographic distance, temporal (ancestral) distance, and physical properties. These created demand for their ritual use in mortuary ceremonies. Non-utilitarian modification and ritual breakage of some bifaces suggest that they may have been employed in “costly signaling” that conveyed “honest” information regarding the user's esoteric knowledge and commitment to existing social and power relations.