New Approaches to Old Questions: Current Research Objectives for the Green River Valley Shell Midden Archaic, Kentucky, USA

Summary

The Green River Valley Archaic shell middens (ca. 10,000 to 3000 BP) located in west-central Kentucky have a long research history dating back more than 100 years to C. B. Moore’s work. Previous research programs have focused on mortuary analysis, subsistence, formation processes, and settlement patterns, laying the groundwork for future researchers to conduct more detailed analyses using newly developed methods (e.g., GIS, isotopic analysis). In this paper, we expand on previous research of the Green River Valley shell middens by describing aspects of site functions and site contents, as they relate to ecological and social contexts. This ongoing work includes 1) paleoethnobotanical research considering the scarcity of Eastern Agricultural Complex crops, either as the result of prehistoric plant use, preservation, and/or recovery strategies; 2) faunal research examining freshwater resources as paleoenvironmental indicators through species composition and isotopic analysis, and 3) GIS-based spatial analysis investigating topographic and ecological features associated with patterned re-use of shell midden locations in the Green River Valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22413