Shell Works of the Ten Thousand Islands, Florida: A Preliminary Settlement Model

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Ten Thousand Islands region of the southwest Florida coast contains extensive prehistoric shell-matrix sites, ranging from small, single rings to large, complex, multi-mound “Shell Works” sites, composed of oyster shell predominantly. Few have ventured to explore this unique archaeological landscape due to the extreme remoteness of the region. In recent years, a reconnaissance program aimed at documenting and describing the region’s shell works sites yielded a database of hundreds of radiocarbon dates. However, questions regarding the timing and tempo of shell work construction remain poorly resolved due to limitations of the radiocarbon dataset: (1) it is skewed in favor of near-surface deposits, with very few dates from basal or sub-mound contexts; and (2) most dates are on oyster shell, which inherently limits the dating precision due to complexities of the estuarine radiocarbon reservoir. Here, we employ a regionally specific ∆R value to interpret the dataset within a Bayesian chronological framework to explore the temporality and distribution of shell work sites. We identify patterns in the evolution of shell work forms over time, posit a preliminary settlement model for the region, and identify directions for future research aimed at building a more fine-grained and robust regional settlement model.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33281