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Title
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Aboriginal Societies Encountered by the Tristan de Luna Expedition
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Date
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1989
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Bibliographic Citation
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Curren, Caleb, Keith J. Little, and Harry O. Holstein. 1989. Aboriginal Societies Encountered by the Tristan de Luna Expedition. Florida Anthropologist 42(4):381-395.
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annotates
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• Covers the state of Alabama, and discusses sites possibly associated with Soto and Luna expeditions based on limited number of historical sources and the limited amount of archaeology that has been conducted in the respective areas.
• Very direct historical approach, if the artifacts (Native American or European) date to the sixteenth century then they are affiliated with Spanish explorers. The issue being that we really do not have a solid grasp on how much and by what processes European trade goods moved across the Indigenous landscape during and after Spanish entradas.
• As with many early reports, and particularly in Alabama, site names are more often referenced than the trinomials, which can make searching for additional data extremely difficult. For instance, the Jewitt Landing Site is discussed as a possible Luna site, but no site number is ever provided, and if you do not know the site you would not know that it is recorded as 1CK55.
• Even though the title of the article is “Aboriginal Societies” there is little in the way of Native American culture presented. Limited mentions of words as being Choctaw in tenuous relation to village locations, etc. but there is no actual discussion of societies.
• Limited discussion of what the Native artifact assemblages are but focuses primarily on ceramics.
• Posits possibilities for Nanipacana might be 1MN183 or 1MN227.