TECHNOLOGY
The Mocama used a variety of tools throughout their daily lives. Using handcrafted nets, seines, baskets, traps, and weirs, they captured large numbers of fish. Heavy whelk shells were used for cutting and pounding, and modified animal bones helped work hides and plant-based textiles. They altered animal bones and shells into decorative ornaments such as hairpins, beads, and pendants. Incised designs adorned some bone hairpins. They drank from ceremonial shells and used baskets made of palmetto fronds and reeds.
POTTERY
The Mocama made pottery using traditional construction techniques invented some 3000 years earlier. Their distinctive ceramic style included crushed pieces of pottery mixed into the local clays prior to firing. From this, they formed heavy-duty pots with thick walls, ideal for long-term cooking and simmering. Female potters decorated the exterior surfaces of these vessels with a range of simple designs. They developed a new decorative style, using kernel-less maize cobs to make impressions in the wet clay.
