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Teardrops, Ladders, and Bull's Eyes: Swift Creek on the Georgia Coast
... 404-406), Milamo (Kelly and Smith 1975, pp. 202-210;Snow et al. 1979), and Evelyn (Ashley et al. 2007;Kelly and Smith 1975, pp. 242-244) all contain Middle Woodland platform mounds. ...
... Many of these sites had associated mounds, including some of the early platform mound sites discussed above-e.g., Kolomoki (Pluckhahn 2003), Letchworth (Seinfeld and Bigman 2013), McKeithen (Milanich et al. 1984, pp. 53-54), Garden Patch (Wallis and McFadden 2016), Walling (Knight 1990), and potentially Evelyn (Ashley et al. 2007). In some cases (e.g., Kolomoki), the midden appears to predate the majority of mound construction; in others, the midden and the mounds grew up more-or-less simultaneously (e.g., Garden Patch). ...
Platform mounds and plazas have a 5000-year-long history in the eastern United States but are often viewed through the lens of late prehistoric and early historic understandings of mound use. This review approaches the history of these important landscape features via a forward-looking temporal framework that emphasizes the variability in their construction and use through time and across space. I suggest that by viewing platform mounds in their historical contexts, emphasizing the construction process over final form, and focusing on nonmound sites and off-mound areas such as plazas, we can build a less biased and more complex understanding of early Native American monumentality.
... For people involved in making Swift Creek pottery, the Satilla River seemed the pathway of choice for navigating to the interior from the Atlantic coast. We expected the Altamaha River with the Swift Creekassociated Evelyn Plantation mound complex (9GN6) to serve this function throughout the Woodland period (sensu Ashley et al. 2007), but it very clearly did not. Weeden Island settlement remained centered on the Gulf Coast and, unlike Swift Creek and Deptford/Cartersville, never extended above the Fall Line zone. ...
State archaeological site files are a critical component of cultural resource management and information management toolkits. Yet, engagement with these datasets for research purposes can be difficult, at best. We address some of the challenges to a synthesis of spatial data from state site files by examining the Woodland period components of Deptford/Cartersville, Swift Creek, and Weeden Island. We also examine time slices of a large set of radiocarbon dates from contexts reported to be associated with Deptford and Swift Creek. Dates are plotted on a map at the same spatial scale as our site files dataset to evaluate time and space simultaneously. This study reveals important gaps in the radiocarbon dataset that can be rectified with strategic sampling. It also supports some long-held ideas about the spatial distribution of Deptford, Swift Creek, and Weeden Island. For example, Weeden Island is demonstrated to be strongly centered on the Alabama and Florida Gulf Coast, whereas Deptford is concentrated on both the Gulf and the Atlantic Coastal Plains.
... In contrast, only occasional sherds bearing the same design and often representing one vessel would be expected at sites that received the design on trade pottery.'' The potential of this approach has inspired numerous examinations and reconstructions of Swift Creek paddle designs (Ashley et al. 2007;Broyles 1968;Knight 2012, 2014;Snow 1975;Wallis 2007;Wallis and O'Dell 2011). Knight (2012, 2014), for example, have developed a ''task'' model for the creation of Swift Creek paddle carvings that sheds light on the chaîne opératoire of Swift Creek artisans and identifies new design attributes by which we can seriate Swift Creek assemblages. ...
During the Middle Woodland period, from 200 BC to AD 600, southeastern societies erected monuments, interacted widely, and produced some of the most striking material culture of the pre-Columbian era, but these developments are often overshadowed by the contemporaneous florescence of Hopewell culture in Ohio. I argue that the demonstrable material links between the Middle Woodland Southeast and Midwest demand that we cease to analyze these regional archaeological records in isolation and adopt multiscalar perspectives on the social fields that emerged from and impacted local Middle Woodland societies. In synthesizing recent research on Middle Woodland settlement, monumentality, interaction, and social organization, I make explicit comparisons between the Middle Woodland Southeast and Ohio Hopewell, revealing both commonalities and contrasts. New methodological approaches in the Southeast, including geophysical survey techniques, Bayesian chronological modeling, and high-resolution provenance analyses, promise to further elucidate site-specific histories and intersite connectivity. By implementing theoretical frameworks that simultaneously consider these local and global dimensions of Middle Woodland sociality, we may establish the southeastern Middle Woodland period as an archaeological context capable of elucidating the deep history of the Eastern Woodlands as well as long-standing issues surrounding middle-range societies.
... Poor design workmanship and application, grog tempering, and the presence of stamped herringbone designs (cf. Crooked River Complicated Stamped) appear to represent a cluster of reliable attributes that mark ninth century waning Late Swift Creek along the Atlantic coast (Ashley and Wallis 2006;Ashley, Stephenson, and Snow 2007;Hendryx 2004); referred to as Kelvin by some in southeastern Georgia (Cook 1979). Ongoing research by Neill Wallis (2007,2008) is opening new vistas into Swift Creek manifestations in northeastern Florida. ...
The interpretive potential of Swift Creek pottery, widely produced throughout Georgia, eastern Alabama, and northern Florida during the Middle and Late Woodland periods between ca. cal AD 100 and 800, has been apparent for many years. Much research has been focused on identifying paddle designs from the impressions left on sherds. Less attention has been devoted to the carving of the wooden paddles and its social context. Drawing inferences from our work on Swift Creek pottery in southern Georgia and Florida, and drawing inspiration from the career of Mark Williams, we consider Swift Creek paddle production “at a human scale.” Extrapolating from the number of paddle designs identified in our sample, we argue that paddle manufacture was an infrequent occurrence, probably conducted by specialists and intended to commemorate major life events.
We describe the development of an open-access database for Swift Creek Complicated Stamped ceramics, a type of pottery common to Georgia, eastern Alabama, and northern Florida in the Middle and Late Woodland periods between ca. cal A.D. 100 and 800. The characteristic stamped designs on Swift Creek pottery, created by impressing a carved paddle into a clay vessel before firing, provide unique signatures that enable archaeologists to identify paddle matches—multiple vessels, sometimes hundreds of kilometers apart, stamped with a single paddle. These paddle matches potentially allow archaeologists to trace social interactions across hundreds of kilometers with high spatial and temporal resolution. To date, however, this potential has been hindered by the limited accessibility and fragmented nature of the dataset of reconstructed designs. The database we describe integrates paddle designs with other pertinent data for identifying paddle matches and their context, including the results of sourcing and technofunctional analyses and absolute dating. We view this database not only as a critical component of our own research, but also as a platform for collaboration among researchers that will facilitate broad syntheses of the region.
Prehistoric Florida societies, particularly those of the peninsula, have been largely ignored or given only minor consideration in overviews of the Mississippian southeast (A.D. 1000-1600). This groundbreaking volume lifts the veil of uniformity frequently draped over these regions in the literature, providing the first comprehensive examination of Mississippi-period archaeology in the state. Featuring contributions from some of the most prominent researchers in the field, this collection describes and synthesizes the latest data from excavations throughout Florida. In doing so, it reveals a diverse and vibrant collection of cleared-field maize farmers, part-time gardeners, hunter-gatherers, and coastal and riverine fisher/shellfish collectors who formed a distinctive part of the Mississipian southeast. © 2012 by Keith Ashley and Nancy Marie White. All rights reserved.
Forty-five years ago Timothy Thompson excavated at two of the six mounds at the Garden Patch site but results were never reported. We assembled data from Thompson's work and enhanced them with new test pits at Mound IV and re-excavation of a Mound V trench. Mound IV is a natural sand ridge where a village was established early, by the second century A.D. Mound V began as a naturally elevated platform for at least one burial and associated structure during the fourth century A.D. and was then covered by lenses of shell and sand. The construction sequence of Mound V resembles other mounds in the region. These results help illuminate the functions and depositional histories of mounds within Woodland multi-mound centers of the coastal plain while also demonstrating an effective approach to balancing stewardship and new excavations.
The Early and Middle Woodland periods (1000 BCE-500 CE) were remarkable for their level of culture contact and interaction in pre-Columbian North America. This volume, featuring case studies from Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee, sheds new light on the various approaches to the study of the dynamic and complex social landscapes of these eras. Essays by well-known and up-and-coming scholars incorporate empirical data with social organizational concepts such as ritual, cultural, and social places, highlighting the variability and common themes in the relationships between people, landscapes, and the built environment that characterize this period of North American native life. © 2013 by Alice P. Wright and Edward R. Henry. All rights reserved.
Although this volume covers a broad range of temporal and methodological topics, the chapters are unified by a geographic focus on the archaeology of the Georgia Bight. The various research projects span multiple time periods (including Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and contact periods) and many incorporate specialized analyses (such as petrographic point counting, shallow geophysics, and so forth). The 26 contributors conducting this cutting-edge work represent the full spectrum of the archaeological community, including museum, academic, student, and contract archaeologists. Despite the diversity in professional and theoretical backgrounds, temporal periods examined, and methodological approaches pursued, the volume is unified by four distinct, yet interrelated, themes. Contributions in Part I discuss a range of analytical approaches for understanding time, exchange, and site layout. Chapters in Part II model coastal landscapes from both environmental and social perspectives. The third section addresses site-specific studies of late prehistoric architecture and village layout throughout the Georgia Bight. Part IV presents new and ongoing research into the Spanish mission period of this area. These papers were initially presented and discussed at the Sixth Caldwell Conference, cosponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and the St. Catherines Island Foundation, held on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, May 20-22, 2011.
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