Investigating Late Woodland Aquatic Catchments through the Reconstruction of Freshwater Mussel Habitats in Mississippi and Alabama, USA.

Summary

Throughout the Late Woodland of the American Southeast, prehistoric communities appear to have expanded the range of species used for food to include lesser ranked resources, resulting in increased exploitation of freshwater mussel beds. These mussel remains provide a valuable source of information about past environments during the Late Woodland. Because many mussel species are extremely sensitive to the characteristics of the waterways in which they live, the pattern of species distribution and densities potentially enable one to reconstruct past environments. Here, I use assemblages of mussel shell from the Yazoo River Basin, MS, and Tombigbee River Basin, AL to construct hypothetical aquatic catchments that were used by prehistoric population. Using these catchments, I map the potential prehistoric use of the environment across modern rivers as well as test ethnographic models of space exploitation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14523