Background
Milanich, Jerald Thomas was born on October 13, 1945 in Painesville, Ohio, United States. Son of John Joseph and Jean Marie (Bales) Milanich.
(Florida's Indians tells the story of the native societies...)
Florida's Indians tells the story of the native societies that have lived in Florida for twelve millennia, from the early hunters at the end of the Ice Age to the modern Seminole, Miccosukee, and Creek Indians. When the first Indians arrived in what is now Florida, they wrested their livelihood from a land far different from the modern countryside, one that was cooler, drier, and almost twice the size. Thousands of years later European explorers encountered literally hundreds of different Indian groups living in every part of the state. (Today every Florida country contains an Indian archaeological site.) The arrival of colonists brought the native peoples a new world and great changes took place - by the mid-1700s, through warfare, slave raids, and especially epidemics, the population was almost annihilated. Other Indians soon moved into the state, including Creeks from Georgia and Alabama, who were the ancestors of the modern Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Written for a general audience, this book is lavishly illustrated with full-color drawings and photographs.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813015995/?tag=2022091-20
("An authoritative overview of the development of Florida'...)
"An authoritative overview of the development of Florida's aboriginal peoples . . . blended with accounts of the European invasions and the dire consequences for the natives of their contacts with the newcomers. . . . Particularly valuable for its use of archaeological and historical data."--John H. Hann, San Luis Archaeological and Historic Site, Tallahassee "An exciting book that brings together for all of Florida the earliest historic records of indigenous peoples and Old World invaders alike, combining archaeology and history to reconstruct events and lifeways of ethnic groups so quickly devastated by the European presence."--Nancy White, University of South Florida When the conquistadors arrived in Florida in the early sixteenth century, as many as 350,000 native Americans lived in the territory. For more than twelve centuries their ancestors had resided here, fishing, hunting, gathering wild plants, and sometimes cultivating crops. Two and a half centuries later, Florida's Indians were gone. Focusing on those native peoples and their interactions with Spanish and French explorers and colonists, Jerald Milanich delineates this massive cultural change. Using information gathered from archaeological excavations and from the interpretation of historical documents left behind by the colonial powers, he explains where the native groups came from, where they lived, and what happened to them. He closes with the tragic disappearance of the original inhabitants in the eighteenth century and the first appearance of the ancestors of Florida's present Native Americans. With maps, photographs, drawings, and a vivid writing style, Milanich creates a sense of history and place--an opportunity to correlate modern towns to colonial events and sixteenth-century trails to twentieth-century highways--that will illuminate history for residents and tourists of Florida as well as for archaeologists and historians.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813016363/?tag=2022091-20
(This book is dedicated to Michael Gannon and explicitly u...)
This book is dedicated to Michael Gannon and explicitly updates his 1965 The Cross in the Sand but views the subject from a different perspective: Where Gannon focused on the mission effort from the missionaries' point of view, Jerald T. Milanich is interested in the way Florida missions affected and were affected by the southeastern Indians they attempted to convert. In eight chapters he outlines the problem of the "lost" missions and the archaeology that has rediscovered them; describes the indigenous peoples of Florida at the time of contact with Europeans; recounts the major events of Spanish exploration; describes early Jesuit missions that failed; introduces the Franciscan missions that succeeded; provides detailed descriptions of Indian life in the mission settlements; traces significant Indian resistance to colonization and missionization; and finally recounts the collapse of the mission system under the inexorable onslaught of English attacks.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1560989408/?tag=2022091-20
( "A comprehensive and compelling archaeological Baedeker...)
"A comprehensive and compelling archaeological Baedeker to Precolumbian Florida that addresses a complex subject in straightforward, no-nonsense language that both scholars and lay readers will find refreshing."--Peter A. Young, editor-in-chief, Archaeology "Milanich is easily Florida's most unconventional and widely read archaeologist. He presents a well-told story of soli-tary Ice Age hunters lurking on dark sinkhole ledges to spear giant tortoises; of the uniquely preserved wooden art objects from thousand-year-old fishing villages; and of the elaborate ritual games of those agricultural chiefdoms who met and defeated the first Spanish Conquistadors. . . . A vivid and thoughtful interpretation of twelve millennia of human experience in the Sunshine State."--David Brose, Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto This record of precolumbian Florida brings to life the 12,000-year story of the native American Indians who lived in the state. Using information gathered by archaeological investigations, many carried out since 1980, Jerald Milanich describes the indigenous cultures and explains why they developed as they did. In a richly illustrated book that will appeal to profes-sional and avocational archaeologists, scholars, tourists, and local history buffs, Milanich introduces the material heritage of the first Floridians through the interpretation of artifacts and archaeological sites. Weaving together discoveries from such sites as the Lake Jackson mounds in the panhandle, Crystal River on the Gulf coast, and Granada on the Miami River, he relates the long histories of the native groups whose descendants were decimated during the European conquest of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-turies. Milanich begins with an overview of the history of ar-chaeology in Florida. He then describes the earliest abo-riginal cultures: the Paleoindians and the people of the Archaic period. The later, regional cultures (Weeden Island, Fort Walton, Glades, Caloosahatchee, and many others) are correlated with geographical and environmental regions and then compared to provide insights about the nature of chiefdom societies, the effects of wetlands on precolumbian settlement systems, and the environmental history of the state. Maps and illustrations document this history of archaeo-logical research in Florida and of the sites and artifacts (including spectacular Weeden Island pottery vessels and Belle Glade wooden carvings) left behind by the precolumbian people. Jerald T. Milanich is curator in archaeology and chair, Department of Anthropology, at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville. He is the author or editor of ten books and monographs, including (with Charles Hudson) Her-nando de Soto and the Indians of Florida (UPF, 1993) and (with Susan Milbrath) First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570 (UPF,1989).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813012732/?tag=2022091-20
(When the conquistadors arrived in Florida in the early si...)
When the conquistadors arrived in Florida in the early sixteenth century, as many as 350,000 native Americans lived in the territory. For more than twelve centuries their ancestors had resided there, fishing, hunting, gathering wild plants, and sometimes cultivating crops. Two and a half centuries later, Florida's Indians were gone. Focusing on those native peoples and their interactions with Spanish and French explorers and colonists, Jerald Milanich describes this massive cultural change. Using information gathered from archaeological excavations and from the interpretation of historical documents left behind by the colonial powers, he explains where the native groups came from, where they lived, and what happened to them. He closes with the tragic disappearance of the original inhabitants in the eighteenth century and the first appearance of the ancestors of Florida's present Native Americans.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813013607/?tag=2022091-20
( "An important achievement. Hudson and Milanich have col...)
"An important achievement. Hudson and Milanich have collaborated on determining the route of de Soto in Florida for several years and this book represents their current conclusions. . . . The world became whole five hundred years ago and Florida was at center stage."--Dan F. Morse, University of Arkansas and Arkansas State University Hernando de Soto, the Spanish conquistador, is legendary in the United States today: counties, cars, caverns, shopping malls, and bridges all bear his name. This work explains the historical importance of his expedition, an incredible journey that began at Tampa Bay in 1539 and ended in Arkansas in 1543. De Soto's exploration, the first European penetration of eastern North America, preceded a demographic disaster for the aboriginal peoples in the region. Old World diseases, perhaps introduced by the de Soto expedition and certainly by other Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, killed many thousands of Indians. By the middle of the 18th century only a few remained alive. The de Soto narratives provide the first European account of many of these Indian societies as they were at the time of European contact. This work interprets these and other 16th century accounts in the light of new archaeological information, resulting in a more comprehensive view of the native peoples. Matching de Soto's route and camps to sites where artifacts from the de Soto era have been found, the authors reconstruct his route in Florida and at the same time clarify questions about the social geography and political relationships of the Florida Indians. They link names once known only from documents (e.g., the Uzita, who occupied territory at the de Soto landing site, and the Aguacaleyquen of north peninsular Florida) to actual archaeological remains and sites. Peering through the mists of centuries, Milanich and Hudson enlarge the picture of native groups of Florida at the point of European contact, allowing historians and anthropologists to conceive of these peoples in a new fashion. Jerald T. Milanich is curator of archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville. He is coeditor of First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570 (UPF, 1989) and cocurator of the "First Encounters" exhibit that has traveled to major museums throughout the United States. He is the author or editor of a number of other books, including Florida Archaeology. Charles Hudson is professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia. He is the author or editor of nine books, including The Southeastern Indians, The Juan Pardo Expeditions, and Four Centuries of Southern Indians. In 1992 he was awarded the James Mooney Award from the Southern Anthropology Society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813011701/?tag=2022091-20
( "Readable, informative, and simply indispensable to any...)
"Readable, informative, and simply indispensable to anyone with a serious interest in Eastern North America’s prehistory."—American Antiquity "Will be the fundamental reference on the archeology of the north Florida area and the Woodland period. . . . Provides a fascinating and informative picture of how modern archaeological studies are performed and how the ideas of researchers can evolve in the face of new data. I highly recommend it."--John F. Scarry, Florida Historical Quarterly More than a millennium ago, the Weeden Island culture flourished across the northern half of Florida and adjacent portions of the Alabama and Georgia coastal plain. For more than a century, archaeologists have marveled over the extraordinary animal effigy pottery vessels left behind by these pre-Columbian peoples in their mounds and villages. In this volume the authors draw on north Florida archaeological excavations and site surveys to unlock the secrets of the Weeden Island culture and its magnificent ceramics. In particular, investigations at the McKeithen site, a multi-mound village site, provide information used to place the culture within the evolutionary framework of native societies in the southeastern United States. New radiocarbon dates from that site establish a firm chronological framework for Weeden Island developments. The authors examine the role of mound-building vis-à-vis social and village organization and provide definitive assessments about the crafting of Weeden Island ceramics and the ritual and social significance of animal effigy figurines and other pottery. From a wealth of past and present field investigations and from modern laboratory analyses, conclusions are offered about Weeden Island lifeways, social structure, and sociopolitical stability. Archaeology of Northern Florida provides a much-needed and valuable synthesis of the Weeden Island culture, one that fundamentally alters how we view the pre-Columbian Southeast. It will be of interest to professional archaeologists, students, and that large segment of the general public that enjoys learning about the past around us. The authors, with more than a half-century of professional experience among them, have carried out archaeological investigations across the United States. Jerald T. Milanich is author of Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida (UPF, 1994) and Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe (UPF, 1995).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813015383/?tag=2022091-20
Milanich, Jerald Thomas was born on October 13, 1945 in Painesville, Ohio, United States. Son of John Joseph and Jean Marie (Bales) Milanich.
Bachelor, University Florida, 1967. Master of Arts, University Florida, 1968. Doctor of Philosophy, University Florida, 1971.
Fellow Smithsonian Institute, Washington, 1971-1972. Assistant professor anthropology University Florida, Gainesville, 1972-1975. Assistant curator Florida Museum Natural History, 1975-1977, associate curator, 1977-1981, chairman department anthropology, 1981-1983, 91-94, curator, since 1981.
(This book is dedicated to Michael Gannon and explicitly u...)
(Florida's Indians tells the story of the native societies...)
( "A comprehensive and compelling archaeological Baedeker...)
(When the conquistadors arrived in Florida in the early si...)
(Based on the latest research findings, this is the moving...)
( "Readable, informative, and simply indispensable to any...)
("An authoritative overview of the development of Florida'...)
(Highlighting to some pages.)
( "An important achievement. Hudson and Milanich have col...)
Trustee Archeological Institute American, since 2004. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member Society of America Archaeology (executive board 1990-1993), Society Professional Archeologists (certified, president 1981-1982), Southern Anthropological Society, Southeast Archeological Conference (president 1986-1988).
Married Maxine L. Margolis, December 20, 1970. 1 child, Nara Bales.