A 7,290-Year-Old Bottle Gourd from the Windover Site, Florida

Abstract

A bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) recovered from a burial context at the Windover site (8 BR246) in east-central Florida has been dated directly to 7,290 ± 120 radiocarbon years B.P. This provides the earliest documentation of bottle gourds north of Mexico and demonstrates approximate contemporaneity with other eastern United States Cucurbitacae. Investigations of wet sites such as Windover, while requiring substantially greater consideration of conservation than in typical dry sites, greatly expands the recovery of organic materials enabling broader insights to prehistoric processes.