Grade Level: 4th through 12th, Grades
Subject: Social Studies, Math, Language Arts
Duration: 45 minutes
Materials: Blank 25’ timeline, tape, historical markers,
Master timeline with dates marked
Florida Sunshine State Standards: LA.B.2.3.2, MA.A.3.3.3, MA.B.1.3.4, MA.D.2.3.2, SS.A.1.3.1, SS.A.2.3.1, SS.A.2.3.2, SS.A.2.3.3
Overview: Through the use of a rope timeline, students will discover points in history as they relate to Emerson Point. Students will learn linear scale as it applies to points on the timeline. Students will mark where they think the historical markers should be placed, and then a correct timeline will be placed beside theirs for comparison.
Objectives: Students will establish on a timeline key points in Florida’s history. Students will contrast the long pre-history of Native Americans in Florida with the point of first contact with Europeans and the demise of Native cultures.
Background:
Prehistory includes anything that happened before the time of written records. There were people in Florida as early as 11,000BC, but the history of these people was passed down orally, through stories. Archaeologists divide Native American cultural development in the following way: Paleoindian (Hunter-gatherers) 12,000 – 6,000 BC, Archaic (Settled communities) 6,000 – 1,200 BC, Woodland (Complex political systems) 1,200BC – AD 1600, and Historic after European contact with written records.
There is archaeological evidence of temporary camp sites within Emerson Point Park dating back to 2500 BC in the Archaic period. This temple mound complex on the north shore of the Manatee River on Snead Island probably began as small shell middens around AD 700. Over the next 800 years each new chief added new layers onto the Temple Mound until it became the approximately 20’ tall and 235’ long platform mound we see today. For in-depth background see Emerson Point History Quest page 42.
Suggested Procedure:
1. Tell students: “In Western cultures time is perceived as being linear, in the sense of traveling in one direction from past -> through present -> into the future.”
2. Stretch the blank 25-foot timeline out for activity.
The key points in time that will be plotted in this activity are listed below. Timeline Scale: 1’ = 500 years 2’ = 1000 years
25’ = 12,500 years 1st people in Florida (Little Salt Springs carbon dated skeleton)
12’ = 6000 yrs (4000BC) Mound Building in Florida
9’ = 4500 yrs (2500BC) Hunter Tribes on Emerson Point site
8’ = 4000 yrs (2000BC) Oldest pottery in N.Am. made in Florida
5’ = 2500 yrs (500BC) People begin to utilize the bounty of the estuary
2’2” = 1200 yrs (800AD) This mound began
1’ = 500 yrs (1500AD) 1527 Panfilo DeNarvaez here
6” = 233 yrs (1767AD) Last known Timucuan dies in Cuba
5” = 200 yrs (1800AD) Seminoles established in Florida
4 ½” = 186 yrs (1814AD) Cuban fisherman here – Ranchos
3 ½” = 133 yrs (1867AD) Homestead built by Robert Stewart Griffith on mound
< ½” = 9 yrs (1991AD) State buys this land under CARL act for preservation
3. Explain the scale to students: 1 foot equals 500 years on the timeline. If your foot is about equal to 12”, then you can walk off about 500 years per step. In this way, working from one end of the timeline as present, you can walk back through the years to mark points in history.
4. Start with a few math exercises: 1 foot equals 500 years
- 2 feet equals how many years? (1000)
- 10 feet equals how many years? (5000)
- The timeline is 25 feet long, how many years does it represent? (12,500) (25feet x 500years/foot) or (25feet x 1000years/2feet)
5. For each marker, have a student volunteer to place marker on the timeline where they think it should fit. Place the first marker at the spot where man was first documented in Florida 12,500 years ago.
6. One by one have a volunteer place remaining markers, and talk about each event and how it may have affected the people living here at Emerson Point.
7. When finished, place master timeline beside the one that students created.
Discussion Questions:
- How close were your guesses?
- Why are most of the events marked on the timeline at the end? (written records)
- Discuss the changes that have been made to Florida’s environment in the relatively short time the Europeans have been in Florida.
- What events do you think had the biggest effect on Florida’s first people?
