Preliminary Results from Pollen Analysis of Soil Cores at Crystal River (8CI1), Florida

Summary

Environmental changes have been frequently cited as causal factors in the growth and collapse of complex societies in the American South. Gulf Coast archaeologists, in particular, have turned to generalized global paleoclimate curves in attempts to understand how ancient coastal villagers responded to environmental shifts. Archaeological palynology, a notably under-utilized resource in the region, offers fine-grained resolution and the ability to investigate local, as well as regional landscape transformations. We report preliminary results of palynological analysis on soil core samples taken from mound, midden, and marsh contexts at Crystal River (8CI1), a Woodland period (ca. 1000 BC to AD 1000) ceremonial and population center on Florida’s west central-coast. Previously reported carbon dating of mound and midden strata, along with new dates from nearby marsh deposits, provide tight chronological control for reconstructing socioecological responses to major changes in climate and sea level. Our study aims to exhibit the untapped potential of stratigraphic microbotanical analysis for improving the understanding of social and ecological dynamics of fisher-hunter-gatherer societies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Understanding the Nature and Timing of Human Responses to Environmental Change

Keywords

Spatial Coverage