No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The Use of Siliceous Microfossils in Tracing Pottery Manufacturing Origins in the Southeastern United States
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Archaeologists have long known that important changes took place in aboriginal ceramic assemblages of the northern Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina coast after the arrival of Europeans. New pottery designs emerged and aboriginal demographics became fluid. Catastrophic population loss occurred in some places, new groups formed in others, and movements of people occurred nearly everywhere. Although culturally and linguistically diverse, the native inhabitants of this region shared the unwelcome encounter with Spanish people and colonial institutions, beginning in the early decades of the 16th century and continuing into the 18th century. Spanish missions and military outposts were established at native communities throughout the area, and these sites have been studied by both archaeologists and historians for decades. As a consequence, the lower southeastern Atlantic coast offers one of the most intensively studied episodes of multicultural colonial engagement in America. The Second Caldwell Conference was organized to bring researchers working in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida together to address and more precisely define aboriginal ceramic change throughout the region as a baseline for approaching a more broadly based anthropological perspective on the consequences of encounter. The scope of inquiry was restricted to late prehistoric and early historic (A.D. 1400-1700) aboriginal ceramic wares from Santa Elena (South Carolina) to St. Augustine (Florida). The primary objective was to more precisely establish the technology, form, and design of the archaeological ceramic evidence. Without devolving into semantic and/or taxonomic wrangles, we examined how well (or poorly) archaeological labels used throughout the region to identify pottery serve as reliable proxies for the physical examples of those ceramic traditions. We also attempted to define the time-space distribution of the various ceramic traditions and pottery types throughout the south Atlantic coast. Specifically, we asked: (1) Did the indigenous ceramic complexes change fundamentally with the arrival of the Spaniards? (2) Or did indigenous ceramic traditions essentially persist, and merely shifted geographically? The eight contributions of this volume examine, on a case-by-case basis, the most important aboriginal ceramic assemblages from Santa Elena southward to St. Augustine, across the region, contextualizing each assemblage with the relevant physical stratigraphy, radiocarbon dates, associations with Euro-American wares, and documentary evidence. We also attempt to situate the physical ceramic evidence from the northern Florida-Georgia-South Carolina coastline with the contemporary archaeological assemblages in the immediate interior. The volume concludes with an epilogue that summarizes the results and general contributions of the conference, relative to archaeological practice in the lower Atlantic coastal Southeast, and also to the larger cultural and methodological issues raised by these papers.
Archaeologists interested in the late prehistory of the Southeast have tended to fix their attention on sedentary, mound-building agricultural groups, often excluding those that lacked farming and institutionalized societal ranking, the hallmarks of Mississippian life. Coastal societies of the period given any consideration are usually those depicted as most similar to interior Mississippian chiefdoms; that is, coastal groups dependent on fish and other wild resources, with supplementary swidden agriculture and hierarchical sociopolitical organization. Southeastern North America, however, was not a socially and politically uniform landscape, and not all late prehistoric groups were farmers, nor were they all organized as chiefdoms. This article focuses on the St. Johns II peoples of northeastern Florida, who were coastal fisher-hunter-gatherers with a communally oriented political economy during the early Mississippi period (AD 900-1250). These coastal peoples were not cut off from the Mississippian world, but rather were actively engaged in interaction and exchange networks, that brought utilitarian artifacts, exotica, and information to northeastern Florida.
Petrographic microscopy is a venerable geological technique that has been used in the service of archaeology at least since the 1930s (e.g., Shepard, 1936, 1939). Compared to newer, sophisticated, “high-tech” approaches to the study of the compositional analysis of ceramics (e.g., neutron activation or acid extraction), petrography surely rates the appellation “old fashioned.”The goal of this chapter is to describe and evaluate critically the current status and potential of ceramic petrography as an approach to the compositional analysis of archaeological ceramics, especially in light of the increasingly widespread and successful application of newer technologies for determining the elemental composition of ceramics that might be seen as rendering petrography obsolete (useful earlier reviews of ceramic petrography may be found in Freestone, 1991 and 1995; Peacock, 1970; Williams, 1983).
In order to answer the age‐old question of whether a given pot was manufactured locally or elsewhere, some archaeologists have turned to geoarchaeological or bioarchaeological methods such as diatom analysis to establish potential clay sources. In this paper, we highlight the complexity of diatom analysis and illustrate how diatoms potentially coming from several sources may be introduced at different stages during the ceramic manufacturing process. Finally, we proceed to evaluate the reliability of diatom analysis as an archaeometric measurement for ceramic provenance, concluding that it may have a more limited usefulness within archaeology than its current frequency of use would indicate.
Results of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of Middle and Late Woodland pottery (n = 313) and clay (n = 22) samples from northeastern Florida and southeastern Georgia are presented. Assemblages in this region include Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery that preserves unique evidence of social interactions through the inimitable qualities of designs stamped into vessel surfaces. Archaeologists have proffered various hypotheses to explain movement of ceramic vessels or the carved wooden paddles used in the manufacture of these vessels. This study tests these hypotheses and indicates that nonlocal vessels, particularly complicated stamped ones, were deposited almost exclusively in mortuary contexts, a pattern that requires new explanations for the role of pottery in social interactions. These data are being integrated with a larger project that aims to reveal the social processes that were tied to the manufacture, use, and distribution of pottery.
During the past decade or so, various coasts have been designated as wave-dominated or tide-dominated. Typically there is an association made between coastal morphology and the dominant process that operates on the coast in question. Most authors consider long, smooth, barrier coasts with few inlets and poorly developed ebb deltas as “wave-dominated”. These coasts are associated with microtidal ranges. Conversely, mesotidal coasts tend to develop short, drumstick-shaped barriers with well-developed ebb deltas. They are considered as tide-dominated barriers. Such generalizations may be restricted to coasts with moderate wave energy although this is commonly not stated.Exceptions to these stated generalizations are so numerous that wave energy and tidal prism must also be included in characterizing coasts. The relative effects of waves and tides are of extreme importance. It is possible to have wave-dominated coasts with virtually any tidal range and it is likewise possible to have tide-dominated coasts even with very small ranges. The overprint of tidal prism will also produce tide-dominated morphology on coasts with microtidal ranges.
This volume is the first in theAdvances in Archaeological and Museum Science series sponsored by the Society for Archaeological Sciences. The purpose of this biennial series is to provide summaries of advances in closely defined topics in archaeometry, archaeological science, environmental archaeology, preservation technology and museum conservation. The Society for Archaeological Sciences (SAS) exists to encourage interdisci plinary collaboration between archaeologists and colleagues in the natural and physical sciences. SAS members are drawn from many disciplinary fields. However, they all share a common belief that physical science techniques and methods constitute an essential component of archaeological field and laboratory studies. The General Editors wish to express their appreciation to Renee S. Kra and Frances D. Moskovitz of Radiocarbon for their special expertise and assistance in the production of this volume. We also appreciate the contribution of the two reviewers for their excellent comments and suggestions. The General Editor responsible for undertaking the development of this volume was R. E. Taylor.
This chapter reviews turquoise sources and their analysis in Mesoamerica and the southwestern US context. As civilizations expand, the demand for rare resources becomes more systematized. Systematic demands are concomitant with systematic acquisition techniques. Mesoamerica, viewed as an ancient world system, certainly had such demands. Rare resource source areas eventually became so heavily exploited by Mesoamericans that province formation and/or colonization was finally reached in some cases. The term turquoise is used in two quite different manners: (1) the narrow definition, which is a chemical one, and (2) a broader designation, a cultural term embracing a whole range of blue and blue–green stones. The cultural term would not only include chemical turquoise but also certain types of malachite, azurites, chrysocollas, a green garnet, and several other copper-bearing minerals not yet fully identified. The turquoises appear to have been the second Teotihuacan luxury rare resource enterprise. Evidence suggests that Teotihuacan was trading for turquoises before attempts to control the rare resource province more directly were made.
Distribution of dated archaeological sites, dredged pottery sherds, 14C dates of submerged in-place stumps, and the presence of numerous buried trees indicate a sea level lowstand of at least -3m MSL between 3000 and 2400 yr BP on the Georgia coast.-Authors
This paper introduces a new technique for the quantitative analysis of ceramic thin sections through petrography. The technique is a version of point counting that estimates with considerable precision the amounts of human additives (temper) and natural inclusions (silt and sand) in ceramic pastes. In concert with traditional qualitative identification of mineral inclusions, this technique expands the capacity of petrography to shed meaningful light on such topics in ceramic analysis as technology, production, trade, and classification. To demonstrate the utility of the technique it is used to reassess the taxonomic status of the type Spring Hollow Incised. The results conclusively show that Spring Hollow Incised is much more closely related to a newly defined Early Woodland ceramic assemblage in the Upper Mississippi Valley region than to the Middle Woodland Linn ware to which it originally was assigned.
The petrographic identification of ceramic tempers has long been known to be a fruitful line of inquiry for investigating intersite and interregional cultural interaction. By applying point-counting procedures to the recording of natural as well as humanly added mineral inclusions in ceramic thin sections, considerable power can be added to this traditionally qualitative technique. The effectiveness of this more quantitative approach in discriminating local from nonlocal vessels is demonstrated through a comparative analysis of two Middle Mississippian-contact sites in the upper Mississippi Valley region-Hartley Fort in northeast Iowa and the Fred Edwards site in southwest Wisconsin.
A unique dataset for studying past social interactions comes from Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery that linked sites throughout much of the Eastern Woodlands but that was primarily distributed over the lower Southeast. Although connections have been demonstrated, their significance has remained enigmatic. How and why were apparently utilitarian vessels, or the wooden tools used to make them, distributed widely across the landscape? This book assesses Woodland Period interactions using technofunctional, mineralogical, and chemical data derived from Swift Creek Complicated Stamped sherds whose provenience is fully documented from both mortuary mounds and village middens along the Atlantic coast. Together, these data demonstrate formal and functional differences between mortuary and village assemblages along with the nearly exclusive occurrence of foreign-made cooking pots in mortuary contexts. The Swift Creek Gift provides insight into the unique workings of gift exchanges to transform seemingly mundane materials like cooking pots into powerful tools of commemoration, affiliation, and ownership. © 2011 by The University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved.
We would like to offer an additional consideration to Pinet and Morgan's convincing conclusions (GeoAbstracts 80E/0302). We propose that as kaolinites are moved downstream between the Altahama and the Sapelo systems, they are cycled through the digestive systems of members of the sediment feeding community. The smectites, on the other hand, move landward up the estuary until they are digested by certain members of the infauna such as amphipods. This digestive process nearly destroys the smectites which do not appear in significant quantities landward of this line.-from Authors
Diatoms are unicellular, siliceous algae that are common in most aquatic environments. Their species composition is strongly related to water quality and aquatic habitats and, because of their silica skeletons, diatom valves can be well preserved and provide a record of past and present environmental conditions. Diatom remains are often diverse and can be identified with high taxonomic precision. These factors allow diatoms to be used in a range of applications in forensic geoscience. These include: the matching of environmental samples with items that have been in contact with water, the investigation of cases of drowning, and the identification of traces of diatomaceous materials used in the manufacture of materials or liquids. Recent developments include an assessment of the potential to use the succession of colonizing, attached diatom species in the determination of time of death. Advances in analytical quality control and the use of multivariate statistical techniques will improve the analysis, presentation and interpretation of diatom data in forensic investigations.
Although diatom analysis has been used in archaeological science for over 40 years, it is still an under-used technique. In this paper, the basis of the technique is explained and the literature on diatoms in archaeology is reviewed. Diatoms are good indicators of a range of water quality variables, but emphasis here, reflecting their dominant use so far in archaeology, is placed on their value as indicators of water salinity. A number of case studies are described from different parts of Europe, demonstrating the use of the technique in the location of prehistoric settlement sites along former shorelines, in reconstructing salinity and tidal regimes in estuaries, and in the location of clay sources for pot manufacture. The potential of diatom analysis in contributing to questions of pottery typology is also indicated. Although diatom taxonomy remains very difficult and specialist analysis will always be required, it is stressed that when there is an archaeological need to ask questions relating to the presence, absence, level, pollution, productivity, acidity or salinity of a waterbody on or near to an excavation, diatom analysis should be considered.
At the outset, only qualitative diatom analysis on soil samples was undertaken at the Albert Egges van Giffen Instituut voor Prae- en Protohistorie, using VAN DER WERFF's (1957) method. It soon became apparent, however, that this method is not exact enough to reconstruct with any degree of accuracy the sort of wet or damp environment in which the diatoms originally lived.
The clays of Finland originated from glacial deposits formed during the deglaciation of the Weichselian ice-sheet and during the different stages of the Baltic Sea. The analysis of the fossil diatom flora is of central importance in the study of its developmental history. The diatoms in the clay indicate its sedimentary environment, which can be linked to the stages of the Baltic Sea. The siliceous valves of diatoms tolerate heating up to 1400°C and can consequently be identified in ceramics fired at lower temperatures. Several diatom analyses have been made in Finnish Sub-Neolithic comb ware pottery in order to determinate the origin of their clay materials. According to the results of these studies, prehistoric potteries used clays deposited during the Yoldia and the Ancylus stages. The criteria used in selecting raw materials were identical to those of modern ceramic industries. Further details as to provenance of clay materials have been illustrated in connection with research on pottery from the Aland Islands. In the example from Kymi, South-eastern Finland, changes in the composition of the diatom flora have been found to correlate with changes in pottery decoration styles.
The relationship between environmental archaeology and diatom analysis, a well established technique in palaeoecology, is explored. The development of diatom analysis for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction is briefly considered and flow diagrams are presented to illustrate laboratory techniques. Examples of research in Mexico, North America, Britain and Europe are discussed to illustrate the potential of diatom analysis as a means of assessing human impact on the environment, notably lake water quality, and as a means of elucidating the palaeoenvironmental conditions under which archaeological sediments have accumulated. Consideration is also given to the role of diatom analysis in examining land/sea-level changes, especially those which may have affected prehistoric resource use, and to its significance in the reconstruction of local environments in and around archaeological sites. Finally, the potential of fossil diatoms for provenancing pottery is explored with particular reference to Dutch and Finnish examples.
Johns pottery and issues of social identity. In: Paper Presented at the 61st Southeastern Archaeological Conference
- Keith H Ashley
- Vicki L Rolland
Ashley, Keith H., Rolland, Vicki L., 2004. St. Johns pottery and issues of social
identity. In: Paper Presented at the 61st Southeastern Archaeological Conference, St. Louis, MO.
Pedro Menendez, Founder of Florida. Translated with an introduction by A. Kerriga
- B Barrientos
Barrientos, B., 1965. Pedro Menendez, Founder of Florida. Translated with an
introduction by A. Kerriga. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.
Archaeology of Devil's Walkingstick Site: A Diachronic Perspective of Aboriginal Life on a Tidal River in Southeast Georgia
- M E Beck
Beck, M.E., 2006. Linking finished ceramics to raw material: oxidized color groups
for Lowland Desert clays. Kiva: J. Southwest. Anthropol. Hist. 72 (1), 93e118.
Borremans, Nina Thanz, 1985. Archaeology of Devil's Walkingstick Site: A
Diachronic Perspective of Aboriginal Life on a Tidal River in Southeast Georgia
(MA thesis). Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Ceramic Analysis in Phase III Archaeological Excavations at Edgewater Landing
- Ann S Cordell
Cordell, Ann S., 1989. Ceramic Analysis in Phase III Archaeological Excavations at
Edgewater Landing, Volusia County, Florida, by Michael Russo, Ann Cordell, Lee
Newsom and Robert Austin. Piper Archaeological Research, Inc., St. Petersburg.
Summary Interpretation of Archaeological Fieldwork at the Fountain of Youth Park Site (8-SJ-31), 1951e2002. Florida Museum of Natural History Miscellaneous
- Kathleen Deagan
Deagan, Kathleen, 2004. Summary Interpretation of Archaeological Fieldwork at the
Fountain of Youth Park Site (8-SJ-31), 1951e2002. Florida Museum of Natural
History Miscellaneous. Project Reports 56.
Historical Archaeology at the Fountain of Youth Park (8-SJ-31
- Kathleen Deagan
Deagan, Kathleen, 2009a. Historical Archaeology at the Fountain of Youth Park (8-SJ-31) St. Augustine, Florida: 1934-2007. Florida Museum of Natural History
Miscellaneous Project Reports in Archaeology #59.
Native American ceramics at the Fountain of Youth Park site, St. Augustine (8-SJ-31)
- Kathleen Deagan
Deagan, Kathleen, 2009b. Native American ceramics at the Fountain of Youth Park
site, St. Augustine (8-SJ-31). In: Deagan, K., Thomas, D.H. (Eds.), From Santa
Elena to St. Augustine: Indigenous Ceramic Variability (A.D. 1400-1700),
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 90,
pp. 141e164.
Irene and Altamaha ceramics from the Charlesfort/Santa Elena site, Parris island, south Carolina
- C B Depratter
DePratter, C.B., 2009. Irene and Altamaha ceramics from the Charlesfort/Santa Elena
site, Parris island, south Carolina. In: Deagan, K., Thomas, D.H. (Eds.), From
Santa Elena to St. Augustine: Indigenous Ceramic Variability (A.D. 1400e1700),
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 90,
pp. 19e47. New York.
Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems
- P T Gayes
- D B Scott
- E S Collins
- D D Nelson
Gayes, P.T., Scott, D.B., Collins, E.S., Nelson, D.D., 1992. A late Holocene sea-level
fluctuation in South Carolina. In: Fletcher III, C.H., Wehmiller, J.F. (Eds.), Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems. SEPM Society for
Sedimentary Geology, Tulsa, pp. 155e160 vol. Special Publication No. 48.
Continuity and change at the Spanish mission San Jean del Puerto
- Rebecca Gorman
Gorman, Rebecca, 2008. Continuity and change at the Spanish mission San Jean del
Puerto (1587-1702), Fort George Island, Florida. In: Paper Presented at Eh 65th
Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Charlotte, NC.
Archaeological data recovery at San Juan del Puerto (8DU53)
- Rebecca Gorman
Gorman, Rebecca, n.d. Archaeological data recovery at San Juan del Puerto (8DU53),
Fort George Island, Florida. On file with author.