Editing History of Florida (section)

==Early history==

===Geology===
{{main|Geology of Florida}}
[[File:Shell Midden, Enterprise, FL.jpg|thumb|250px|A shell [[midden]] at [[Enterprise, Florida]] in 1875.]]
The foundation of Florida was located in the continent of [[Gondwana]] at the South Pole 650 million years ago (Mya). When Gondwana collided with the continent of [[Laurentia]] 300 Mya, it had moved further north. 200 Mya, the merged continents containing what would be Florida, had moved north of the equator. By then, Florida was surrounded by desert, in the middle of a new continent, [[Pangaea]]. When Pangaea broke up 115 mya, Florida assumed a shape as a peninsula.<ref name="Hine2013">{{cite book|first=Albert C.|last=Hine|title=Geologic History of Florida: Major Events that Formed the Sunshine State|url={{Google books|XZm-MgEACAAJ|page=30-31|plainurl=yes}}|year=2013|publisher=University Press of Florida|isbn=978-0-8130-4421-7|pages=30–31}}</ref>
The emergent [[landmass]] of Florida was [[Orange Island (Florida)|Orange Island]], a low-relief island sitting atop the carbonate [[Florida Platform]] which emerged about 34 to 28 million years ago.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hughes|first1=Joseph D.|last2=Vacher|first2=H.L.|last3=Sanford|first3=Ward E.|date=2007|title=Three-dimensional flow in the Florida platform: Theoretical analysis of Kohout convection at its type locality|url=https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/35/7/663/129931/Three-dimensional-flow-in-the-Florida-platform|journal=Geology|volume=35|issue=7|pages=663–666|doi=10.1130/G23374A.1|bibcode=2007Geo....35..663H |access-date=2022-08-11}}</ref> When [[Quaternary glaciation|glaciation]] locked up the world's water, starting 2.58&nbsp;million years ago, the sea level dropped precipitously. It was approximately {{convert|100|m|sp=us}} lower than present levels. As a result, the Florida peninsula not only emerged, but had a land area about twice what it is today. Florida also had a drier and cooler climate than in more recent times. There were few flowing rivers or [[wetland]]s.

===First Floridians===
{{See also|Indigenous peoples of Florida|Indigenous people of the Everglades region}}
[[Paleo-Indians]] entered what is now Florida at least 14,000 years ago, during the [[last glacial period]].<ref name=purdy>{{Cite book|title=Florida's People During the Last Ice Age|last=Purdy|first=Barbara A.|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8130-3204-7|publisher=University Press of Florida|quote=Purdy: 2, states that the evidence for the presence of humans in Florida by 14,000 years ago is "indisputable".}}</ref>{{rp|2}} With lower sea levels, the Florida peninsula was much wider, and the climate was cooler and much drier than in the present day.<ref name="AucillaRiverPrehistoryProject2020">{{cite web |author1=Florida Museum Staff |title=Aucilla River Prehistory Project {{!}} When the first Floridians met the last mastodons |url=https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/vertpaleo/aucilla-river-prehistory-project/ |website=Floridamuseum.ufl.edu |publisher=Florida Museum |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303101416/https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/vertpaleo/aucilla-river-prehistory-project/ |archive-date=March 3, 2020 |location=Gainesville, Florida |access-date=May 12, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> Fresh water was available only in [[sinkhole]]s and [[limestone]] catchment basins, and paleo-Indian activity centered around these relatively scarce watering holes. Sinkholes and basins in the beds of modern rivers (such as the [[Page-Ladson]] site in the [[Aucilla River]]) have yielded a rich trove of paleo-Indian [[Artifact (archaeology)|artifacts]], including [[Clovis point]]s.<ref name=milanich98/>{{rp|3–12}}

Excavations at an ancient stone [[quarry]] (the Container Corporation of America site in [[Marion County, Florida|Marion County]]) yielded "crude stone implements" showing signs of extensive wear from deposits below those holding Paleo-Indian artifacts. [[Thermoluminescence dating]] and [[weathering]] analysis independently gave dates of 26,000 to 28,000 years ago for the creation of the artifacts. The findings are controversial, and funding has not been available for follow-up studies.<ref name=purdy/>{{rp|106–115}}

As the glaciers began retreating about 8000 [[Common Era|BCE]], the climate of Florida became warmer and wetter. As the glaciers melted, the sea level rose, reducing the land mass. Many prehistoric habitation sites along the old coastline were slowly submerged, making artifacts from early coastal cultures difficult to find. There were islands throughout Florida as far south as what is now Orlando.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dos.myflorida.com/historical/archaeology/underwater/sites/drowned-prehistoric-sites/|title=Drowned Prehistoric Sites|date=n.d.|publisher=Florida Dept of State}}</ref> The paleo-Indian culture was replaced by, or evolved into, the [[Archaic period in the Americas|Early Archaic culture]]. With an increase in population and more water available, the people occupied many more locations, as evidenced by numerous artifacts. [[Archeology|Archaeologists]] have learned much about the Early Archaic people of Florida from the discoveries made at [[Windover Archeological Site|Windover Pond]]. The Early Archaic period evolved into the Middle Archaic period around 5000 BC. People started living in villages near wetlands and along the coast at favored sites that were likely occupied for multiple generations.

The Late Archaic period started about 3000 BC, when Florida's climate had reached current conditions and the sea had risen close to its present level. People commonly occupied both fresh and saltwater wetlands. Large shell [[middens]] accumulated during this period. Many people lived in large villages with purpose-built [[Earthworks (archaeology)|earthwork]] [[mound]]s, such as at [[Horr's Island]], which had the largest permanently occupied community in the Archaic period in the southeastern United States. It also has the oldest [[burial mound]] in the East, dating to about 1450 BC. People began making fired pottery in Florida by 2000 BC. By about 500 BC, the Archaic culture, which had been fairly uniform across Florida, began to fragment into regional cultures.<ref name=milanich98/>{{rp|12–37}}

The post-Archaic cultures of eastern and southern Florida developed in relative isolation. It is likely that the peoples living in those areas at the time of first European contact were direct descendants of the inhabitants of the areas in late Archaic and [[Woodland period|Woodland]] times. The cultures of the Florida panhandle and the north and central [[Gulf of Mexico|Gulf]] coast of the Florida peninsula were strongly influenced by the [[Mississippian culture]], producing two local variants known as the [[Pensacola culture]] and the [[Fort Walton culture]].<ref name=MARRINAN2007>{{cite journal|first1=Rochelle A.|last1=Marrinan|author2=Nancy Marie White|url=http://www.trailoffloridasindianheritage.org/pdf/fw1.pdf|title=Modeling Fort Walton Culture in Northwest Florida|journal=Southeastern Archaeology|volume=26|number=2–Winter|year=2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130403084151/http://www.trailoffloridasindianheritage.org/pdf/fw1.pdf|archive-date=April 3, 2013}}</ref><ref name=WEINSTEIN2008>{{cite journal|journal=Southeastern Archaeology |title=The spread of shell-tempered ceramics along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico |volume=27 |issue=2 |year=2008 |author1=Weinstein, Richard A. |author2=Dumas, Ashley A. |url=http://www.coastalenv.com/sarc-27-02-202-221-e.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425141409/http://www.coastalenv.com/sarc-27-02-202-221-e.pdf |archive-date=April 25, 2012  }}</ref>

Continuity in cultural history suggests that the peoples of those areas were also descended from the inhabitants of the Archaic period. In the panhandle and the northern part of the peninsula, people adopted cultivation of maize. Its cultivation was restricted or absent among the tribes who lived south of the [[Timucua language|Timucuan]]-speaking people (i.e., south of a line approximately from present-day [[Daytona Beach, Florida]] to a point on or north of Tampa Bay.)<ref name=milanich98>{{cite book|first=Jerald T.|last=Milanich|title=Florida's Indians From Ancient Time to the Present|date=1998|publisher=University Press of Florida|pages=38–132|isbn=978-0813015996}}</ref> Peoples in southern Florida depended on the rich estuarine environment and developed a highly complex society without agriculture.

===European contact and aftermath===

[[File:Flindians1723.JPG|thumb|250px|[[Bernard Picart]] Copper Plate Engraving of Florida Indians, circa 1721<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Bernard|editor-first=Chez J.F.|last1=Bernard|first1=Jean-Frédéric|last2=Picart|first2=Bernard|title=Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/50032372/}}<!--Private collection of L.S. Morgan in St. Augustine, FL--></ref>]]

At the time of first European contact in the early 16th century, Florida was inhabited by an estimated 350,000 people belonging to a number of tribes. (Anthropologist [[Henry F. Dobyns]] has estimated that as many as 700,000 people lived in Florida in 1492).<ref>{{Cite news|last=Lord|first=Lewis|date=August 1997|title=How Many People Were Here Before Columbus?|pages=68–70|work=U.S. News & World Report|url=https://www.bxscience.edu/ourpages/auto/2009/4/5/34767803/Pre-Columbian%20population.pdf|access-date=February 16, 2021}}</ref> The [[Spanish Empire]] sent Spanish explorers recording nearly one hundred names of groups they encountered, ranging from organized political entities such as the [[Apalachee]], with a population of around 50,000, to villages with no known political affiliation. There were an estimated 150,000 speakers of dialects of the [[Timucua language]], but the [[Timucua]] were organized as groups of villages and did not share a common culture.<ref name=milanich95>{{cite book|first=Jerald T.|last=Milanich|title=Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe|date=1995|publisher=University Press of Florida|isbn=0-8130-1360-7}}</ref>{{rp|1–2, 82}} Other tribes in Florida at the time of first contact included the [[Ais (tribe)|Ais]], [[Calusa]], [[Jaega]], [[Mayaimi]], [[Tequesta]], and [[Tocobaga]].

The populations of all of these tribes decreased markedly during the period of Spanish control of Florida, mostly due to epidemics of newly introduced [[infectious diseases]], to which the Native Americans had no natural [[Immunity (medical)|immunity]]. Beginning late in the 17th century, when most of the [[indigenous peoples]] were already much reduced in population, [[Apalachicola Province#Attacks on Spanish missions|peoples]] from areas to the north of Florida, supplied with arms and occasionally accompanied by [[white (people)|white]] colonists from the [[Province of Carolina]], raided throughout Florida. They burned villages, wounded many of the inhabitants and carried captives back to [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charles Towne]] to be sold into [[slavery]]. Most of the villages in Florida were abandoned, and the survivors sought refuge at [[St. Augustine, Florida|St. Augustine]] or in isolated spots around the state. Many tribes became extinct during this period and by the end of the 18th century.<ref name=milanich95/>{{rp|213–228}}

Some of the Apalachee eventually reached Louisiana, where they survived as a distinct group for at least another century. The Spanish evacuated the few surviving members of the Florida tribes to [[Cuba]] in 1763 when Spain transferred the territory of Florida to the [[British Empire]] following the latter's victory against France in the [[Seven Years' War]].<ref name=milanich95/>{{rp|227–231}} In the aftermath, the [[Seminole]], originally an offshoot of the [[Creek people]] who absorbed other groups, developed as a distinct tribe in Florida during the 18th century through the process of [[ethnogenesis]]. They have three federally recognized tribes: the largest is the [[Seminole Nation of Oklahoma]], formed of descendants since removal in the 1830s; others are the smaller [[Seminole Tribe of Florida]] and the [[Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida]].