North America - Southeast (Geographic Keyword)
326-350 (537 Records)
Three Mississippian villages from the Pisgah period (AD 1200 – 1600) in western North Carolina are reviewed and discussed – the Cane River Site (31Yc91), the Warren Wilson Site (31Bn29), and the mound and village at the Garden Creek Site (31Hw1). The elements of each community’s built environment, household architecture and domestic practices are evaluated and considered along with new radiocarbon dates from each site. These three Pisgah communities are situated in an unusual mountain...
Mitigating Hurricane Risk in Colonial St. Augustine, Florida (2016)
This poster explores hurricane risk mitigation in colonial St. Augustine, Florida, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The city was primarily under Spanish rule during these centuries, although brief British and American periods are also represented. While St. Augustine is not a hurricane hot spot it does suffer occasional blows. Its waterfront location and the importance of shipping and fishing to the local economy made the town vulnerable to hurricane-associated wind and flooding....
A Mode-based Approach to Seriation of Woodland Pottery in Northwest Georgia (2016)
The complex nature of ceramic style geographies of the Woodland period in northern Georgia has led many to argue that pottery cannot be properly seriated in this region. When we rely on our current typological tools, this assertion holds true because major styles are contemporaneous for long periods. A further complication is the use of different decorative modes within a small community or even by a single household. The overlapping nature of decorative modes does not yield itself well to...
Modelling Age and Sedimentation Rates at the Page-Ladson Site (2017)
Stone tools and mastodon bones occur in an undisturbed geological context at the Page-Ladson site, Florida. Age models were created for excavation unit 50N/23E and core PLAD-AUC14-4A to estimate age ranges and sedimentation rates. The models were constructed using Bayesian models as implemented in OxCal to calibrate ages, combine equivalent age estimates, exclude outliers, and estimate deposition rates. The models were used to provide age estimates for artifacts recovered from the site,...
Modern Floods, Historic Fires, and Unstable Urban Landscapes in Charleston, South Carolina (2017)
The city of Charleston, South Carolina is situated on a peninsula in a naturally marshy environment threaded with tidal creeks. Since European settlers first began to develop the city in the late seventeenth century, these wet, low-lying areas were drained and filled in to accommodate expansion of the southern metropolis and combat disease. The result is a landscape, both in shape and relief, that has changed dramatically from one generation to the next. Fires, the threat of war, hurricanes, and...
The modern United States of historical archaeology site reporting: A multi-state analysis of reported historical archaeological sites archived in the Digital Index of North American Archaeology. (2015)
It is recognized that certain biases exist in the archaeological recording of historic sites and contexts in comparison to those from prehistory. Typically, these studies deal only with one state or a discrete region of interest due to the legacy limitations of archaeological record keeping in research and cultural resource management settings. This study demonstrates a first step toward providing historical archaeologists with greater insights into the larger effects of the many discrete...
Molded Ceramic Vessels of the Late Prehistoric Appalachian Summit (2016)
Late Woodland ceramic vessels in northwestern North Carolina are highly variable in tempering materials and surface treatments but are nearly limited to jar forms of a limited size range. Coil breaks are found almost exclusively on shoulder, neck, and rim sherds. Vessel bodies sometimes exhibit evidence of net impression underlying rectilinear stamping. These attributes coupled with experimental observations indicate that vessel bodies were often formed in molds. This mode of ceramic vessel...
Monumentality and Cultural Resilience in Coastal Louisiana (2016)
Resilience is the ability of complex systems to adapt to change in the wake of disturbance. Here, we describe the relationship of natural deltaic land evolution and anthropogenic monument construction using a case study of Ellesly Mound, an earthen monument located in the Lafourche subdelta of the Mississippi Delta. Borehole and LIDAR data show that Ellesly mound is situated above naturally deposited crevasse sediments underlain by organic-rich facies indicating a relatively low-lying vegetated...
Monuments From The Sea: The Prehistoric Shellscapes of the Ten Thousand Islands, Fl (2016)
The Ten Thousand Islands, Everglades, Florida contain an impressive maritime landscape, composed of entire islands constructed and terraformed with shell midden. These shell work sites are the tangible and complex vestiges of hunter-fisher-gatherer communities. Shell work formations include extensive complexes of mounds and features. Similarities in temporal and spatial patterning among shell islands suggest that communities were interrelated across a broad region. Shell work islands and their...
More than a Rusty Nail: Archaeometric Analysis of Wrought Iron Nails from Fallen Tree, St. Catherines Island, Georgia. (2015)
Computed Tomography (CT) scanning empowers researchers to analyze the physical properties of archaeological materials beyond their superficial qualities. Micro CT enables one to non-destructively observe and measure interior features of an artifact with high precision. It also allows one to segment conjoined materials by their relative densities. The processed images can be exported as 3-dimensional models and analyzed in an array of open-source software applications. In this case study we use...
More to the (Poverty) Point: Investigation of a Previously Unknown Mound (2015)
Poverty Point, recently inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage List, is a monumental earthworks site built ca. 3700-3100 BP by hunter-fisher-gatherers. Until very recently, the original Late Archaic configuration was believed to include four mounds; six concentric, semi-elliptical, earthen ridges; and a large interior plaza. A fifth mound was added about 1800 years later. In August 2013, a small, suspicious rise in the woods on the northeast edge of the Poverty Point monumental core was...
Mortuary Ritual at the Fort Center Mound-Charnel Pond Complex (8GL12): New Insights from an Accidental (Re)Discovery (2016)
William Sears’s reconstruction of a Hopewellian charnel platform with wood carvings at Fort Center (8GL12) is one of the more vivid imaginings of prehistoric ritual in Florida archaeology. This model has been influential in our thinking about ritual in the Okeechobee area. It was long believed that Sears’s excavations completely destroyed the pond-mound complex and that further data recovery would be impossible. Recently, wallowing wild hogs (Sus scrofa) uncovered wood artifacts in the Fort...
Mossy Bluff, an Early Alabamu Site in Northeast Alabama (2016)
The Alabamu people, along with the affiliated Coasati, were an important part of the Creek Confederacy in the late 18th century. Excavations at Mossy Bluff (1Ct610) in northeastern Alabama revealed the first Alabamu site to be identified in the area that they inhabited before their migration and coalescence with the Creeks. The site is located in a relatively secluded location, near the southeastern margin of what is interpreted to be the tribe’s pre-migration territory. This paper describes the...
Mound Summit Archaeology at the Carson site, Coahoma County, Mississippi (2015)
In 2014, the Carson Mounds Archaeological Project (CMAP) excavated a structure on the summit of Mound D. In addition to a cache of Mississippian chisels, or woodworking tools, excavations revealed several rebuilding episodes associated with this structure. Furthermore, a well-fired and compact earthen floor was discovered underneath the daub fall. This presentation focuses on excavations and findings, radiocarbon dates from the structure and Mound D, and also includes a discussion on...
A Multi-Site Analysis of Intergroup Violence in East Tennessee of 1300-1600 C.E.: Temporal and Regional Patterns (2017)
A meta-analysis of deliberate violent trauma (i.e., inflicted projectile points, antemortem blunt force cranial trauma, scalping, body element dismemberment and retrieval) in the human skeletal assemblages of twenty late prehistoric sites (N = 1300+ individuals) was undertaken to determine temporal (Dallas phase [1300-1540 C.E.], Mouse Creek phase [1400-1600 C.E.]) and/or regional patterns within the Ridge-and Valley physiographic province of East Tennessee. The site samples were retrieved from...
Multidisciplinary Research on "Rebels Rest": A 150 Year Old Log Frame House Site in Sewanee, Tennessee (2016)
This poster summarizes the preliminary results from a multidisciplinary research project that began as a salvage project when a 22 room, 150 year old log frame house burnt on the campus at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. Faculty, students and volunteers are actively involved in an integrated program that includes archival research, architectural history, dendrochronology, dendroecology, geoarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, and historical archaeology. The 7 acre site...
Multiscalar Community Histories: A Tale of Migration, Aggregation, and Integration in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley (2016)
Mississippian archaeology has benefited from historicized approaches which situate communities and their constituent parts within larger socio-political landscapes, rather than treating them as bounded or normative entities. In this paper, we explore historical and socio-political dynamics within the community centered upon Singer-Moye, a large (30+ ha) mound center located in the lower Chattahoochee River valley. Our analyses combine archaeological and geophysical data from mound and off-mound...
A Multistage Model for Treponemal Disease Susceptibility (2015)
There are numerous historical, bioarchaeological, and paleopathological studies of treponemal disease, but most have focused on the origin and antiquity of syphilis. Therefore, little is known about the evolution and ecology of the other treponematoses, such as yaws. In modern populations, research options are limited by difficulty in culturing the causal bacteria, lack of animal models, and ethical issues with human testing. Treatment with antibiotics has also limited clinical research into...
The Multivocality of Firearm Materials Among the Captive Africans of the Hume Plantation, Georgetown, South Carolina 1790s-1860s (2017)
This paper will discuss firearm materials and related artifacts found in the slave quarter of the historic Hume Plantation, a rice producer in the South Carolina low country from the late eighteenth century until the Civil War. Due to the historical context of violent outbreaks in the region including a murder at a neighboring plantation, it would seem that firearms and materials that could be used for weaponry would be highly prohibited among the enslaved population. Furthermore, according to...
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation Council House: a continuation of architectural traditions (2015)
Public architecture is reflective of society. Council houses were an important example of public architecture during both prehistoric and pre-removal times and were prevalent across the Southeast. The original purpose of these council houses was to provide a place for the people to conduct official meetings in the winter months. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Council House in Okmulgee, OK is an example of post-removal public architecture that was...
My best day at FPAN was teaching teachers: Celebrating 10 years of Project Archaeology in Florida (2016)
The Florida Public Archaeology Network was established in 2005 and within a year hosted its first Project Archaeology: Intrigue of the Past workshop. As a proud sponsor of Project Archaeology in Florida, regional center staff partnered with the National Park Service and University of Florida to publish the first Investigating Shelter investigation in the southeast. It was also the first in the Investigating Shelter series to feature a National Park site. Investigating a Tabby Slave Cabin teacher...
Native American Interaction during the Spanish Contact and Mission Period on the Central Coastal Plain of Georgia, USA, A.D. 1540 to A.D. 1700. (2017)
This paper examines how interaction between Native American groups living in areas of indirect contact changed during the Spanish colonization of the Southeastern United States. The project area, the Big Bend Region of the Ocmulgee River Valley in the central coastal plain of Georgia, had ties to the Spanish mission region in both prehistoric and historic periods, though there was little direct interaction between Spanish missionaries and Native Americans. Using technological style as a...
Native American Whaling and Porpoise Hunting Techniques Along the East Coast of North America (2017)
Native Americans were the first people to exploit the cetacean fauna found in the coastal waters of the western North Atlantic. Most of these animals were drift whales found washed up along the shoreline, but there is historiographical evidence indicating that some Native Americans actively pursued whales, porpoises and dolphins from small craft offshore. In this paper I discuss various tools and techniques utilized by the indigenous inhabitants of North America to pursue, harvest and process...
The Nature of Place: Changing Mortuary Traditions During the Contact Period (2017)
Community and identity among Mississippian communities were centered on cultural landscapes; reified by monumentality and complex political economies, regional interaction, and mortuary traditions. The transition at the end of the Mississippian period is marked by regional collapse, migration, diaspora, and ideological shifts. There is also a re-imagining of complex religious and sociopolitical structures, creation of new cultural landscapes, and re-conceptualization of collective traditions....
Near-Surface Geophysical Investigations at the Multicomponent Magnolia Valley Site (40RD314) in Rutherford County, Tennessee (2015)
In May 2014 we collected magnetic gradiometry, frequency-domain electromagnetic-induction (EMI), and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data at the Magnolia Valley site (40RD314) in Rutherford County, Tennessee with the Middle Tennessee State University 2014 Field School, a component of the MTSU Rutherford County Archaeology Research Project (RCARP). We collected data using Geometrics G-858 cesium vapor magnetometer, GSSI’s Profiler EMP-400 multifrequency electromagnetic conductivity meter, and...