(Source of picture: Florida State Archives)

Here are loads of food from the river and lots of grain from the fields.  The grain could be used to prepare grits, fritters, and cornbread.  Apparently, this is a Timucua seafood feast in the making! 

When the French saw a scene like this, their mouths would have watered and their stomachs rumbled.  During the 1560s, the settlers at Fort Caroline couldn't have survived without provisions from local natives.

PREHISTORIC GARBAGE DUMPS -- Suppose you were a Timucua and you didn't care for shellfish:  Your neighbors would probably have considered you a finicky eater!  Shellfish were consumed primarily by the Timucua who lived along the coast and the inland rivers, including the St. Johns. 

Over time, these early Floridians ate countless tons of such shellfish as oysters, snails, crabs, clams, and mussels.  They piled the debris in middens.  These are trash heaps that contain shells, bones, broken pottery, etc.  Some of mounds are massive, and there were lots of them.

Middens used to blanket parts of Florida's East Coast, from Cape Canaveral northward.  During the 1800s, in fact, Americans couldn't believe their eyes.  They couldn't comprehend that human activity had created so many mounds. 

Numerous middens, though, have been cleared away.  Shell miners have used them for road beds & other purposes.  This situation has been ongoing since the late 1800s.  Federal & state laws, however, now prohibit the disturbance of middens on public lands.  Unfortunately, those on private property are still fair game.

LOCAL TRASH HEAPS -- Many middens still remain on Fort George Island in Duval County (Jacksonville).  Take a trip over the dirt road that runs to the Kingsley Plantation house.  Some mounds will be visible from your car. 

One easily reachable midden is the double mound in Arlington.  It's located near Fort Caroline Road, in the Theodore Roosevelt Area of the Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve.  This midden covers about 25 acres and stands 25 feet deep with oyster shells.  There are four shell mountains in the immediate area, and they date from 600 to 2,500 years ago.

MAD ABOUT OYSTERS -- If they returned today, the Timucua of the Jacksonville area would probably frequent oyster bars.  They went wild over oysters, whether raw, boiled, or roasted.  

Among Jax area Indians, oysters proved by far to have been the favorite shellfish.  We know this because of what is uncovered in local middens.  Along the St. Johns River from downtown Jacksonville to the sea,  middens are mostly made from oyster shells.  South of Palatka, on the other hand, it's a different story.  Snail shells are the principle component of middens.

OTHER TRACES OF THE TIMUCUA -- Middens are not the only evidence of long-gone Indian life in Jacksonville. There are more than 300 known Indian sites just in Duval County.  These include burial spots, Indian villages, Spanish mission villages, and temporary seasonal camps.  Also found are old places where tools were made and food was prepared. 

Some Indian sites sit in fields, forests, and backyards.  Others have been paved over.  These include locations at Pointe La Vista near San Jose Boulevard; sites at the Colony Cove and Brittany Bluff subdivisions on Mill Cove; a site at the federal courthouse downtown; and a site at a Mayport Road convenience store that's on part of the old Mayport Mound.