Firefly Synchronicity in Platform Mound Building by Indigenous Peoples of the Florida Peninsula, USA

Summary

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

Although archaeologists commonly situate the value of our field in its capacity to identify broad-scale patterning in human societies over the long term, critiques of the essentialism and linearity of social evolution led many to abandon this goal in favor of shorter-term, local histories. Drawing from calls for a “process archaeology” that recognizes continuous change or becoming, and its application to complex societies, we use firefly synchronicity as a framework for understanding patterning in the timing of the construction of platform mounds by Indigenous peoples of Tampa Bay, on the western coast of the Florida peninsula, USA. Archaeologists now recognize that Indigenous peoples of eastern North America began constructing platform mounds earlier than commonly been accepted, yet early platform mounds are often interpreted as having little regularity in form, timing, or location. Bayesian modeling of radiocarbon dates and isotopic studies of oyster (C. virginica) shells from three sites in Tampa Bay reveals rhythmic coordination in the construction of platform mounds across the first millennium CE.

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): 41539.0