Timucuan Style Dugout Canoe

Timucuan Style Dugout Canoe. . , An Ancient Form of Transportation , The word canoe comes to English from the Carib word kenu (meaning dugout) via the Spanish word canoa. This linguistic exchange occurred in the sixteenth century as Spain expanded its colonial empire throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America. The Timucua language was recorded by Franciscan friars, and the Timucua word for canoe was recorded as tico. , The Carib were not the first culture to make a dugout canoe. Hollowing out a tree to use as a boat is an ancient human tradition dating back at least 10,000 years. Nearly all of mankind's cultures have used this form of boatbuilding. The earliest surviving example of a dugout canoe is the Pesse boat, dating from approximately 8040 BC. Discovered near the village of Pesse in the Netherlands, it is constructed from a single log of scotch pine. , Other types of canoe and boat construction existed at that time, but the fact that dugout canoes are fashioned from a single large log makes them more easily preserved. , It is thought that the Timucua came to this area from coastal Venezuela around 2,400 BC, and the most likely scenario for their migration would have been to travel by large ocean-going canoes using short interisland hops through the Caribbean and then using the Gulf Stream to head north along Florida's coast. This technology would have been commonly used throughout the North Florida area. In fact, recent droughts have exposed a large number of Timucuan era canoes in North Central Florida area lakes., Water Travel Made Simple , The Timucua in this area used canoes extensively in their day to day lives for travel, fishing, hunting, and battle. The North Florida region has a large number of rivers, lakes and streams that make canoe travel one of the best choices for getting from one place to another. , Water, Water Everywhere , Northeast Florida has miles and miles of waterways , creeks, lakes, marshes, rivers, and the Atlantic Ocean all provided easy transit for a canoe-using people such as the Timucua. Some water features are man-made. , [photo captions] , . The Pesse Canoe , . One of the most common clams in the area is the Southern Quahog (Mercenaria campechiensis) which lives in the mud in estuaries across the southeastern United States. The clam is edible and tasty, and was a dependable food source for the Timucua along the coast. Judging from the extensive trash heaps (middens) in the area, oysters were eaten in larger quantities, probably because they are easier to gather. The shell of the Southern Quahog is very thick and durable, making it perfect for scraping charcoal from a burnt canoe bottom. Interestingly, it has recently been discovered that these bivalves can live for centuries.