Archaeology of the Apalachicola-Lower Chattachoochee Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological synthesis in this neglected region (in northwest Florida, southeast Alabama, and southwest Georgia) provides alternative models of cultural adaptations over the last ca. 14,000 years. Paleo-Indian evidence is densest in the tributary Chipola River but extends to the coast. As post-Pleistocene sea-level rise pushed the river eastward, Archaic peoples adapted to climate change, developed the earliest ceramics by about 4500 BP, and deposited estuarine shell middens. By Middle Woodland times (ca. A.D. 300-700) mound ceremonialism included a fascination with light, exotic forms, and fancy imports but not yet any apparent economic stratification. All this waned as people began growing maize inland, with Fort Walton-period agricultural chiefdoms emerging by AD 1000. Old-World invaders arrived nearby 500 years later, then colonists, leading to major depopulation, the disappearance of aboriginal material culture, and a confused protohistoric record. Creek groups moved south into Spanish Florida, becoming Seminoles. Settlements, including the largest Maroon community in the US, were destroyed by the emerging American nation. Recent historical archaeology research includes lost Civil War forts; the short-lived antebellum boomtown of old St. Joseph (1836-1844); industrial, agricultural, and military sites; and the destroyed landscape after Hurricane Michael in 2018.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37736.0