Dent Mound is located on Pelotes Island, part of an island chain which curves out into the salt marsh northeast of the Dames Point Bridge in Jacksonville, Florida. The island is part of the E. Dale Joyner Nature Preserve, owned and operated by the St. Johns River Power Park (JEA/FPL) as a free environmental education facility for students. The burial mound provides a focal point for student programs about the Timucua Indians, as well as the final stop along the mile-long nature hike. The Preserve and its lands are a gated private property, owned by the St. Johns River Power Park. Access to the Preserve is by reservation and guided tour only. Any unauthorized access will be construed as trespassing. Chapter 872 of the Florida Statutes Unmarked Human Burial Law makes it illegal to disturb any burial site.

The mound itself is presently covered by oyster shells, soil, and large oaks and hickories. In 1977, before the Northeast Florida Anthropological Society (NEFAS) excavated the mound, it was roughly circular, with a diameter of 50 feet. Its maximum height above the surrounding area was 2.6 feet (a total of 20 feet above sea level). A 30 foot wide and 2 foot deep prehistoric borrow pit was found about 10 feet south of the mound. The Native Americans probably excavated fill for their mound-building activities from this pit.

90% of Dent Mound was excavated by NEFAS over a seven year period, from 1977-84. The skeletal remains they found were re-buried at the site. The artifacts are currently at the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Recently, these remains were reanalyzed, and the results were made public in Excavation of the Dent Mound (8Du68), Duval County, Florida by Keith Ashley and Bob Richter in August 1993. This report and other sources are summarized here.

In 1956, the Pelotes site was recorded in the Master Site File by John Goggin of the University of Florida. At that time, some shell mining (for road fill) had occurred at Pelotes Island, but the middens were largely undisturbed. (A midden is a prehistoric trash pile, usually composed of shellfish, broken pottery, and stone tools.) In 1985, NEFAS updated the Master Site File to include the burial mound. They noted that some looting of the burial mound had occurred before their excavation. In 1990, professional archaeologists, Dickinson and Wayne, surveyed the area of the burial mound and other more northern areas where the JEA proposed locating its nature center and visitor parking areas. In 1993, the National Park Service dug test pits at various locations on Pelotes as part of a larger study. They located many small midden sites. A few of these middens possessed charcoal-tempered pottery (like that in the burial mound). This suggests that some of the middens on Pelotes were laid down while the burial mound was in use.

As you approach the mound from the north, you walk over middens that are up to 18 feet above the surrounding ground level, composed mostly of oyster shells. These Orange period middens date from 4000 to 2000 years ago. (Later occupation is also evident.) These middens merge into the edges of the burial mound. Part of the mound is on top of this midden, and the native peoples performing the burials may have dug down into this midden substrate to inter at least 2 of the skeletons. (Subsequent burials were laid on the surface and covered with layers of sand. This causes the mound shape.) The burial mound itself was actively used between 250 and 600 AD. There is also a layer of midden on top of the burial mound. This later trash pile dates from 800 AD forward, and was in use by native peoples that may not have even realized they were dumping on a burial site. These peoples were a St. Johns II culture and may have been the Timucua who later met the French and Spanish in the 1500’s.

Several categories of items were found within the mound contexts: human remains, pottery shards, lithic (stone) artifacts, bone artifacts, shell artifacts, and faunal (animal) remains.

Human Remains: There are an estimated 98-113 individuals buried in Dent Mound. Burials were either primary (buried shortly after death) or secondary (having some preparation via natural decomposition or intentional defleshing before burial). These included:

24 skull-only burials

12-15 extended (primary) burials

13 bundle burials (4 had more than one person per bundle)

2-3 flexed (primary) burials

9 long bone-only burials

3 partial burials.

Some burials had associated grave goods, including shells, stone tools, hinged bivalves (possibly food offerings), broken pottery, ochre (red soil), animal remains, and human skulls (ancestor veneration or war trophies?) Some skulls were buried face up and others face down. No age or gender analysis was attempted by NEFAS.

Pottery: More than 6000 shards (broken pottery pieces) were found in the mound area (an 18 x 16 meter excavation). Thirty-three pots were reconstructed and are currently on display at MOSH. The pottery shards recovered fell into the following categories: Orange (9), Deptford (127), Swift Creek (208), St. Johns (340), Weeden Island (1).

Pottery types are distinguished by temper, the material added to the clay to make it resilient during the firing process. The mound pottery included the following tempers: sand, sand/fiber, sand/charcoal, charcoal, grit, and grog (pottery bits). They are also distinguished by the decorations (or lack thereof) found on the clay. The decorations found include: plain, cord-marked, heavy cord-marked, cross cord-marked, check stamp, simple stamp, complicated stamp, incised, punctated, shell scraped, cob marked, fabric impressed, and roughened.

Lithic (stone) tools included 17 projectile points, 6 biface tools, 2 unifacial tools, 1 greenstone celt, quartzite cobbles and hammerstones, mica sheets, graphite, iron oxide, sandstone tools and abraders, and debitage (chips left over from projectile point construction). The greenstone, mica, and graphite suggest contact with other native groups since these materials do not occur naturally in north Florida. Almost all of the projectile points date to the suggested time-frame for the mound, 250-600 AD. These types included Bradford, Colombia, Duval, Jackson, Leon, Sarasota, Tampa, Taylor, and Newnan.

Bone tools included an incised bone pin from the borrow pit, a bear tooth, a bear tooth bead, 2 deer antler artifacts, and a bone point. Shell artifacts were much more plentiful, usually made from knobbed or kiener’s whelks (Busycon). These included 6 cutting tools, 3 battering tools, 11 columellae (the center twirl of a whelk), 2 fish effigy pendants, 1 cup (made of a lightning whelk), 1 scoop, and 3 columellae beads.

Faunal (animal) remains included

Mollusks: snail, whelk, periwinkle, mussel, oyster, cockle, clam

Fish: gar, catfish, crevalle jack, sheepshead, black drum, red drum, sea trout, flounder

Reptiles: alligator, snapping turtle, diamondback terrapin, box turtle, gopher tortoise

Birds: cormorant, great blue heron, hawk, duck

Mammals: opossum, rabbit, squirrel, dolphin, raccoon, mink, deer.

Not all of these animals were eaten. Hawks, for example, were usually esteemed as great hunters. The inclusion of hawk remains in the mound may have been ceremonial in nature. (Of course, this is supposition.)

The layout and grave goods associated with Dent Mound are very similar to those of Mayport Mound. This suggests a shared culture and burial rituals. The very fact of burying grave goods suggests a belief in an afterlife. All pots were broken (or killed) before they were buried with the dead. This breaking was intended to release the pot’s spirit, killing it in effect, so it could make the journey with the dead person. Some pots were actually created and fired with a piece missing, so they could be buried intact, but still be technically broken, or dead.

The pottery found at Dent Mound can also tell us about the living culture of these people. For example, some of the (complicated stamped Swift Creek) pottery found in Dent Mound was made by the same artisan as pottery found at the Lewis Island site in Georgia. The pottery designs (used by archaeologists today to match the pots) were originally carved into a wooden paddle and pressed into the partially dry clay. Small flaws in the paddle show up on all the pots made with it, so archaeologists can tell that either the artisan, the paddle, or the finished pottery product was moving up and down the Atlantic Coast, probably via trade. Other pottery shards at the Lewis Island site have been found to match pieces at Mayport Mound, emphasizing the connectedness of the native peoples in north Florida and South Georgia between 250 and 600 AD. These connections are dispelling the "war-like" native image, in favor of a loose, but friendly, trade-based cooperation.

The wide variety of pottery and lithic tool types suggests that the Dent Burial Mound was utilized by an extended family group during a two to three hundred year period. Two radiocarbon dates of 370 AD and 590 AD (plus or minus 70 years) agree with the timeline of an active burial use for Dent Mound between 250 and 600 AD.

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