Video

Tabby and the Timucua

Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve

Transcript

Hello I'm Ranger Cicely. I'm standing in front the barn at Kingsley Plantation it is made out of an oyster shell cement called tabby. The oysters may have been consumed thousands of years ago, long before European ships reached our shores. The Timucua as they are called now, were loosely related indigenous people that lived in large villages throughout northeast and central Florida and southeast Georgia they used forest materials and resources from the salt marsh to make life here dramatically shaping the land. The Timucua of this area where fish are hunter gatherers and harvested one of the most abundant and accessible animals around the oyster shells and other bits of refuge were piled together forming large trash heaps called shell middens by studying them we learned important details about Timucua culture sometime later the middens also served as raw materials for enslaved Africans to create structures like this one although the Timucua are not here to speak for themselves their impacts are long-lasting and provide a record of life pre-imposed European contact and long before the establishment of Kingsley Plantation.

Description

Before enslaved people built structures out of tabby there were Timucuans leaving behind oyster shells. Learn the story behind the story with Ranger Cici.

Duration

1 minute, 15 seconds

Credit

NPS

Date Created

02/09/2021

Copyright and Usage Info