Pepper–Hearst expedition
The Pepper–Hearst expedition of 1895–1897 on the west coast of Florida was sponsored by Dr. William Pepper and philanthropist Phoebe Hearst, and led by the anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing.
In 1895, Pepper took steps to investigate the existence of interesting remains near Tarpon Springs, Florida after Lt. Col. Charles Day Durnford reported on them.
It lay close alongside the sea-wall at the southwestern edge of the key and just below a succession of shell benches, themselves formerly abandoned and filled-up courts of a similar character.
The side opposite the seawall, on the east, was formed by an extended ridge – scarcely less high than the sea-wall itself, and likewise composed of well-compacted shells.
The Clyde Line Steamship Company furnished passes for the expeditionary members from New York City to Jacksonville; they left Washington on December 4, 1896.
They consisted of wood, cordage and like perishable materials associated with implements and ornaments of more enduring substances, such as shell, bone and horn.
Unique to archaeology as these things were, Cushing was distressed to feel that even by merely exposing and inspecting them, the expedition was dooming so many of them to destruction, rather than preserving them as permanent examples of primitive art.
Portions of mats, some thick, as though for use as rugs, others enveloping various objects, and others still of shredded bark in strips so thin and flat and closely platted that they might well have served as sails, were frequently discovered, yet none of them could be preserved.
Trays were comparatively shallow, oval in outline and varying in length; the ends were narrowed and truncated to form handles, the upper faces of which were usually decorated with neatly cut-in disc-like or semilunar figures or depressions.
[10] Personal ornaments and paraphernalia, miscellaneous ceremonial appliances, sacred and symbolical objects, carvings and paintings, as well as masks and figureheads were also described among the expedition's finds.
