North America - Southeast (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (537 Records)
A multi-disciplinary approach was taken during recent archaeological investigations at multiple Everglades tree island accretionary middens. The research design focused on recovering as much information as possible to ascertain the evolution of tree islands across the Everglades with respect to human adaptation. An immense amount of material was recovered, which permitted researchers to reconstruct paleo-botanical environments, soil formation processes, and human adaptations on these tree...
The Archaeology of Frontier American Judaism: Exploring the Mosaic of Jewish Domestic Religious Practice in the 19th Century (2016)
The Block Family Farmstead in Washington, Arkansas represents the first documented Jewish immigrant family to arrive in the state and their home is the most extensively excavated Jewish Diaspora site in North America, dating to the first half of the 19th Century. The site gives unique insight into the domestic practices of a Jewish family on the frontier in absence of an ecclesiastical support network or coreligionist community. The faunal assemblage recovered primarily from the home’s detached...
The Archaeology of Souls: A Foundation through Systematic Survey of Historic Woodland and Plains Native American Soul Concepts (2016)
The potential for accurately reconstructing prehistoric Woodland and Plains Indian societies’ notions of human soul-like essences using symbolically rich mortuary remains and art can be improved when analogous, comparative ethnohistorical information is collected systematically and with sensitivity to tribal and regional variations. Literature on 49 historic Woodland-Plains tribes produced 643 cases informing on nine selected subjects: number and locations of souls in an individual, number of...
Archaeology of the 18th-Century French Colonial Metoyer Land Grant Site, Natchitoches, Louisiana (2015)
Recent plans to develop a tract of land on Cane River prompted examination of a locality pivotal to understanding the colonial creole experience in northwest Louisiana. Survey work in 2011 and 2012 identified a large river front site, part of which was home to the plantations of Narcisse Prud’homme, John Plauché, and Pierre Metoyer—the latter an economically prominent colonial known for his relationship with the celebrated Marie-Thérèse Coincoin. Subsequent archival research, geophysical survey,...
Archaic Fishing in the Eastern Woodlands: An Examination of Social Causes and Environmental Variation (2017)
The Eastern Archaic Faunal Working Group brings together researchers and nearly sixty faunal datasets representing twenty-one sites from four major sub-regions of the Eastern Woodlands. In this paper, we focus on resource availability and the potential causal relationship to cultural choice. The Archaic Period archaeological sites in our study are located in the Mid-South and Ohio River Valley regions, and are well known for their composition of shell in the form of middens or mounds. In a...
The Archeological Dynamic Friction Cone Penetrometer (2015)
Archaeologists have used metal probes for centuries, and, more recently, their digitized descendant, the penetrometer, to locate artifacts and features that yield greater resistance in the soil. Most recently, geological miners and agricultural technologists have added additional instrumentality to the penetrometer to measure both resistance and friction. To determine if archeological soils and other midden features could be distinguished using a penetrometer employing both resistance and...
Architectural Features versus Historic Maps of Fort St. Pierre, 1719-1729, Vicksburg, Mississippi. (2015)
Fort St. Pierre (1719-1729), located near present-day Vicksburg, Mississippi, was a short-lived French fort on the periphery of colonial Louisiane. Data from the 1974 through 1976 excavations have recently been collated with unreported excavation data acquired in 1977; and now provides a more complete picture of the perimeter of the fort (the palisade and dry moat) and the structural remains within this perimeter. Historical maps of this fort depict an orderly layout of fort structures; but the...
Aspects of Carved Paddle Stamped Designs from the Middle Mississippi Period (2017)
Complicated stamped pottery vessels, and the carved wooden paddles used to stamp them, were produced in Southeastern North America beginning early in the first millennium AD and continued in some quarters well into the 19th century. Much of the research on paddle designs has focused on the highly decorative and diverse Woodland Period expressions, with little attention given to later, more repetitive paddle stamps. In this paper, I bring the methods of analysis used to study Woodland paddle...
Assessing Mobility and Social Interactions through Integrated Analyses of Complicated Stamped Pottery in the American Southeast (2015)
In the Deep South of the American Southeast, regional scale social interactions burgeoned alongside the growth of nucleated villages, widespread mound-building projects, and conspicuous mortuary ceremonialism during the Middle and Late Woodland period (ca. AD 100 to 800). A premier material for understanding the significance of social interactions across the southern landscape comes from Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery, a ubiquitous class of material culture that provides direct evidence...
Assessment of past subsistence strategy and environmental impacts using novel geochemical analyses of mollusk shells (2016)
Archaeologists are beginning to apply two new analytical techniques to estuarine mollusk shells: inferring paleo-salinity from sclerochronological oxygen isotope profiles and assessing anthropogenic waste loading from mollusk nitrogen isotope measurements. These related approaches may offer insight into subsistence priorities and environmental alteration, but data from each should be interpreted with caution until these proxies are more completely validated. Potential uses and limitations of...
ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF AN OIL SPILL ON THE DISASTER ARCHAEOLOGY OF LOUISIANA’S GULF COAST (2017)
In April of 2010, the Macondo well blowout and Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion led to the discharge of an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil from Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (MC 252) in the north-central Gulf of Mexico. Within three months the Macondo blowout became the largest marine oil spill in history, impacting more than 1,000 miles of shoreline. Disaster response and cleanup were followed by studies of subsequent impacts on coastal and marine ecology, natural resources,...
The Associations Model for use of Hemphill-Style Engraved Pottery at Moundville (2015)
This paper will examine one possible model for the use of pottery engraved in the Hemphill style at Moundville, the associations model. The Hemphill style is Moundville's local representational art style. The most commonly engraved themes in the style are winged serpents, crested birds, raptors, paired tails, center symbols and bands, and human trophies in the form of skulls, scalps, and the hand and eye design. It is suggested that these designs represent patron supernaturals relating to the...
Auditory Exostoses as Indicators of Mobility and Sexual Divisions of Labor in the Green River Valley, Kentucky (2016)
Auditory Exostoses (AEs), commonly called "surfer’s ear," are benign bony swellings in the external auditory canal and most often occur due to regular exposure of the ear to cold water and wind. Some of the highest frequencies of AEs encountered are found in Archaic Period populations of the Green River Valley, Kentucky. Previous measurements of sample populations have shown a range of 12.6 to 34.9 percent of adults with one or more AE, with even higher percentages existing among the male...
Battling the Rising Sea: Investigation and Protection of Turtle Mound, Castle Windy and Seminole Rest Shell Mound Sites (2015)
Massive shell midden mounds were once common in the Canaveral region, but since the 1880s an estimated 68% of these sites have been destroyed. The shell mounds preserved within Canaveral National Seashore include one of North America’s tallest shell mounds (Turtle Mound), one of the last remaining vestiges of an extensive shell mound culture that inhabited the region. Recent investigations of Turtle Mound, Castle Windy and Seminole Rest inform about interactions and influences between people,...
A Bayesian Radiocarbon Chronology for Southern Appalachia, A.D. 700-1400 (2016)
Advances in radiometric dating and statistical analyses are having a substantial impact on the archaeology of eastern North America, especially through the achievement of high precision intrasite chronologies. While detailed intrasite dynamics are invaluable to advancing understandings of rapid cultural change, more refined and empirically constructed regional histories are also necessary. An integrated regional Bayesian chronology is presented for Southern Appalachia using extant radiometric...
Bear/Human Relationships in Southeastern Native North America: Creating Archaeological Models from Historical Accounts (2017)
Historical accounts and ethnographic studies of the Indians of greater southeastern North America dating from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries contain abundant information on native people’s attitudes toward black bears (Ursus americanus). These records provide a basis for inferences about changes in subsistence exploitation of bear populations in the Southeast over the last five centuries, while offering clues about longer-term non-subsistence relationships between bears and humans that...
Beings from the Third Dimension: Imaging Weeden Island Effigies (2015)
The use of 3-D imaging enhances the ability of archaeologists to record and analyze artifacts for both public and academic purposes. This study used 3-D imaging to scan a sample of ceramic artifacts collected by Decatur Pittman in the 1880s from the Palmetto Mound (8LV2) mortuary facility on the Florida Gulf Coast housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH). This collection consists primarily of Woodland Period (AD 200-1000) Weeden Island ceramics that include large portions of...
Belle Glade Circular Earthworks: A New Interpretation (2016)
A summary of prehistoric circular earthworks in the Lake Okeechobee and northern Everglades is provided. Their forms and their relation to the area's wetlands is discussed, and a hypothesis as to their function is provided.
Belle Glade Monumental Construction Examined (2016)
Some of the densest concentrations of prehistoric monumental construction in Florida are located within the Kissimmee River valley/ Lake Okeechobee basin areas. Based on 1930s-1940s aerial images and limited field investigations archaeologists have created typologies for the various circle ditch and linear earthworks. However, these studies did not examine the intra-relationships of the subcomponents that comprise the individual mound complexes, nor the intersite relationships to the physical...
The Best Days at FPAN are Out of Sight: Public Archaeology Airwaves of Unearthing Florida and the DARC Geotrail (2016)
The Florida Public Archaeology Network has created a variety of unique projects throughout the past decade of its existence. Two of these projects called Unearthing Florida and DARC Geotrail used “airwaves” through the medium of radio and the technology of GPS satellites as a way to educate the public about Florida’s archaeological heritage and to promote archaeotourism. Unearthing Florida is a radio program broadcast Florida public radio NPR member stations designed to enhance the public’s...
The Best Days at FPAN are Shared with Others: The Various Partnerships FPAN had Developed Over the Years (2016)
Since its inception, the Florida Public Archaeology Network has relied on partnerships with other organizations to help meet our goal of public awareness and education. Throughout the years we have partnered with various organizations to offer training, workshops, youth and adult programs and other opportunities for the public to learn about Florida’s archaeological heritage. Each of these partnerships is unique and bring with them their own challenges and successes. This paper will discuss some...
The Best Days at FPAN are Under Water: The SSEAS and HADS Programs for Sport Divers and Diving Leadership (2016)
FPAN’s development of the Submerged Sites Education & Archaeological Stewardship (SSEAS) program targeted to sport divers and the Heritage Awareness Diving Seminar (HADS) targeted to diving leadership has led to gains in the appreciation and protection of the underwater cultural heritage, in Florida and elsewhere. In presenting these programs, FPAN staff have worked with divers ranging from newly certified to long-time educators, in the process learning as much as we teach. This paper describes...
Betwixt and Between: Petroglyph Boulders on Liminal Locations in the Southeastern Mountains (2016)
As far as can be ascertained, all documented petroglyph boulders in northern Georgia and western North Carolina occur next-to old Indian overland trails or certain river corridors, specifically at transition points on the landscape. Moreover, these transition points occur between sites with mounds and town houses at one end and certain mountain tops at the other. Whereas a few Cherokee accounts explicitly mention petroglyph boulders at such locales, the placement of some others can be inferred...
Beyond Ethnicity: Compositional Analysis and the Manufacture and Trade of Colonoware. (2016)
Hand-built, low-fired pottery from South Carolina exhibit a sometimes bewildering degree of heterogeneity. Analysis of vessel form, construction technique, temper inclusions, chemistry and surface treatment suggests a broad range of practice and potential cultural influence. Colonoware vessel forms and surface treatment display a complex blending of traditions that arose from the entangled lives of Africans, Native Americans and Europeans and reveal something of the complex cultural...
Beyond the Dirt: Protecting the Council Oak (2016)
This presentation examines one unique project in which archaeologists from the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s (STOF) Tribal Historic Preservation Office act as caretakers of a living artifact; the Seminole Tribe’s Council Oak tree in Hollywood, Florida. The Council Oak evolved from a convenient shady spot for meetings to one of the most important cultural symbols of the Tribe today. Tribal archaeologists, despite a lack of experience in arboriculture, must face challenges such as natural...