Sourcing Pensacola Communities of Practice: NAA of Mississippian Pottery on the Northern Gulf of Mexico Coast

Summary

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

The Pensacola variant of the northern Gulf of Mexico Coast was well connected to interior Mississippian groups, yet Pensacola lifeways do not fit broader patterns of subsistence, settlement, and political organization commonly thought of as hallmarks of Mississippian societies. Throughout the Pensacola culture area, people created hybrid cultures by adopting some Mississippian traits while retaining much of their existing regional lifestyles. Pensacola sites and assemblages are therefore quite diverse. We seek to better understand the social relationships that underlie patterns in the distribution of material culture at these sites. How connected were Pensacola communities with one another, with the monumental site of Bottle Creek, and with other Mississippian groups? We have employed neutron activation analysis (NAA) of Pensacola pottery across the northern Gulf Coast to provide direct evidence for the movement of people and ceramic vessels across the lower Southeast from ca. AD 1150-1700. The ability to identify geographic sources of clays and specific paste recipes allows us to situate potting communities of practice in particular places and to begin untangling the relationships among the people who made and used Pensacola pottery.

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): 39413.0