Pepper-Hearst Expedition

Pepper-Hearst expedition occurred in 1895-1897 on the coast of the U.S. state of Florida, near Tarpon Springs. Sponsored by Dr. William Pepper, of the University of Pennsylvania, and the philanthropist, Phoebe Hearst, it was led by the anthropologist, Frank Hamilton Cushing. The pre-Columbian finds demonstrate a Shell Age phase of human development and culture.

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. An expedition was organized, the expense of which was defrayed jointly by Pepper and Hearst. By special agreement with the Bureau of American Ethnology, the expedition was placed under the direction of Cushing, a patient of Pepper's, with the understanding that the Smithsonian Institution should receive duplicates when such were found, and should publish the scientific results of the expedition, to be known as "The Pepper-Hearst Expedition."

In May 1895, with two men and a little fishing sloop, Cushing began exploration of the islands and capes of Charlotte Harbor, Pine Island Sound, Caloosa Bay, and the lower more open coast as far as Key Marco, approximately 90 miles (140 km) away to the southward. At Key Marco, Cushing discovered a small, triangular, pond which he named, "Court of the Pile Dwellers". 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. Around the upper end, and down the outer side of this ridge, led an inlet canal, bordered by similar ridges beyond, and joined by an outlet canal at the lower end—that continued through various low-banked enclosures in the mangrove swamps toward the south, down to the terminus of the seawall itself.

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