With funding from the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program (Grant agreement P20AP00202), the Drs. Charlie Cobb, Gifford Waters, and Michelle LeFebvre of the Florida Museum of Natural History conducted metal detecting surveys on state lands at the archaeological sites of Mound Key and Pineland in Lee County, Florida in December of 2021 and April of 2022. The broader goals of this project were to define and assess the integrity of the battlefields represented by a Spanish water-borne campaign against at least four Calusa towns in southwestern Florida in 1614 CE.

map of Florida
Calusa towns attacked in 1614 Spanish military expedition. Map by Charlie Cobb, reported submitted to Florida Division of Historical Resources

During their metal detecting fieldwork, Cobb unearthed several historical items including fired lead shot, a wrought iron nail, and a medallion featuring past President Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Thomas Marshall (acting 1913-1921). These images among others were digitally scanned by the Florida Museum’s Digital Imaging Division and rendered 3D models can be found on their SketchFab page under “South Florida Archaeology”.

Learn more

To read more about their research see “Preliminary Investigations of the 1614 Spanish Attack on the Calusa Realm” from the November 2022 Friends of the Randell Research Center Newsletter.