Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:38:01.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Forager Interactions on the Edge of the Early Mississippian World: Neutron Activation Analysis of Ocmulgee and St. Johns Pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Keith Ashley ,
Neill J. Wallis  and
Michael D. Glascock
Keith Ashley
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL32224 ([email protected])
Neill J. Wallis
Affiliation:
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
Michael D. Glascock
Affiliation:
Research Reactor Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study integrates disparate geographical areas of the American Southeast to show how studies of Early Mississippian (A.D. 900-1250) interactions can benefit from a multiscalar approach. Rather than focus on contact and exchanges between farming communities, as is the case with most Mississippian interaction studies, we turn our attention to social relations between village-dwelling St. Johns II fisher-hunter-gatherers of northeastern Florida and more mobile Ocmulgee foragers of southern-central Georgia; non-neighboring groups situated beyond and within the southeastern edge of the Mississippian world, respectively. We draw upon neutron activation analysis data to document the presence of both imported and locally produced Ocmulgee Cordmarked wares in St. Johns II domestic and ritual contexts. Establishing social relations with Ocmulgee households or kin groups through exchange and perhaps marriage would have facilitated St. Johns II access into the Early Mississippian world and enabled them to acquire the exotic copper, stone, and other minerals found in St. Johns mortuary mounds. This study underscores the multiscalarity of past societies and the importance of situating local histories in broader geographical contexts.

Résumé

Résumé

Al integrar dos regiones geográficas distintas del Sudeste Norteamericano, este estudio demuestra como las investigaciones sobre interacciones humanas durante el período Misisipiano Inicial (900-1250 d.C.) pueden beneficiarse de una orientación multiescalar. En lugar de enfocarnos en las situaciones de contacto e intercambio entre comunidades de agricultores, como es el caso en la mayoría de estudios sobre interactión durante el Misisipiano, nos enfocarnos en las relaciones sociales entre los habitantes de las comunidades de pescadores-cazadores-recolectores del período St. Johns II del Noreste de Florida y las comunidades itinerantes de recolectores Ocmulgee del área Centro Sur del estado de Georgia; grupos no adyacentes entre sí, dentro y más allá de la frontera Sudeste del mundo Misisipiano respectivamente. Recurrimos al análisis de activación por neutrones para documentar la presencia de cerámicas Ocmulgee importadas y producidas localmente, las mismas que son decoradas con cordones en relieve, en los contextos rituales y domésticos de St. Johns II. El establecimiento de relaciones sociales entre las unidades domésticos o grupos de parentesco a través de intercambio o quizá matrimonio, habría facilitado el acceso de las sociedades St. Johns II a la órbita del Misisipiano Inicial y les habría permitido adquirir materiales exóticos como el cobre, las piedras, y otros minerales que han sido hallados en los montículos funerarios de St. Johns II. Este estudio destaca la característica multiescalar de las antiguas sociedades precolombinas y la importancia de situar las historias locales en contextos geográficos extensos.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 290 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Arnold, Dean E., Neff, Hector, and Bishop, Ronald L. 1991 Compositional Analysis and “Sources” of Pottery: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach. American Antiquity 93:70–90.Google Scholar
Arnold, Dean E., Neff, Hector, Bishop, Ronald L., and Glascock, Michael D. 1999 Testing Interpretive Assumptions of Neutron Activation Analysis: Contemporary Pottery in Yucatán, 1964–1994. In Material Meaning: Critical Approaches to the Interpretation of Material Culture, edited by Elizabeth Chilton, pp. 61–84. Foundations of Archeological Inquiry. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith 1998 Swift Creek Traits in Northeastern Florida: Ceramics, Mounds, and Middens. In A World Engraved: Archaeology of the Swift Creek Culture, edited by Mark Williams and Daniel Elliott, pp. 197–221. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith 2002 On the Periphery of the Early Mississippian World: Looking Within and Beyond Northeastern Florida. Southeastern Archaeology 21:162–177.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith 2003 Interaction, Population Movement, and Political Economy: The Changing Social Landscape of Northeastern Florida (A.D. 900–1500). Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith 2005 Toward an Interpretation of at the Shields Mound (8DU12) and Mill Cove Complex. Florida Anthropologist 58:287–301.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith 2012 Early St. Johns II Interaction, Exchange, and Politics: A View from Northeastern Florida. In Late Prehistoric Florida: Archaeology at the Edge of the Mississippian World, edited by Keith Ashley and Nancy White, pp. 100–125. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith, and Rolland, Vicki 2002 St. Marys Cordmarked Pottery (Formerly Savannah Fine Cord Marked of Northeastern Florida and Southeastern Georgia): A Type Description. Florida Anthropologist 55:25–36.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith, and Rolland, Vicki 2013 Ritual at the Mill Cove Complex: Realms Beyond the River. In New Histories of Pre-Columbian Florida, edited Neill Wallis and Asa Randall, pp. 262–282. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith, Rolland, Vicki, and Marrinan, Rochelle 2008 Grand Site: Testing of the Grand Shell Ring. Manuscript on file, Division of Historical Resources, Tallahassee, Florida.Google Scholar
Ashley, Keith, and White, Nancy Marie 2012 The Mississippi Period in Florida: An Introduction. In Late Prehistoric Florida: Archaeology at the Edge of the Mississippian World, edited by Keith Ashley and Nancy White., pp. 1–28. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Bahuchet, Serge, and Guillaume, Henri 1982 Aka-Farmer Relations in the Northeast Congo Basin. In Politics and History in Band Societies, edited by Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee, pp. 189–211. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Baxter, Michael J. 1992 Archaeological Uses of the Biplot—A Neglected Technique? In Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, edited by Gary Lock and Jonathan Moffett, pp. 141–148. BAR International Series S577. Tempvs Reparatvm, Archaeological and Historical Associates, Oxford.Google Scholar
Baxter, Michael J., and Buck, Caitlin E. 2000 Data Handling and Statistical Analysis. In Modern Analytical Methods in Art and Archaeology, edited by Enrico Ciliberto and Giuseppe Spoto, pp. 681–746. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Bender, Barbara 1985 Emergent Tribal Formations in the American Mid-Continent. American Antiquity 50:52–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bieber, Jr., Alan, M., Brooks, Dorothea W., Harbottle, Garman, and Sayre, Edward V. 1976 Application of Multivariate Techniques to Analytical Data on Aegean Ceramics. Archaeometry 18:59–74.Google Scholar
Bird-David, Nurit H. 1988 Hunters and Gatherers and Other People—A Re-examination. In Hunter and Gatherers Volume I: History, Evolution and Social Change, edited by Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn, pp. 17–30. Berg, Oxford.Google Scholar
Bishop, Ronald L., and Canouts, Veletta 1993 Archaeometry. In The Development of Southeastern Archaeology, edited by Jay Johnson, pp.160–183. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Bishop, Ronald L., Canouts, Veletta, Crown, Patricia L., and DeAtley, S. P. 1988 The Formation of Ceramic Analytical Groups: Hopi Pottery Production and Exchange, A.D. 1300–1600. Journal of Field Archaeology 15:317–337.Google Scholar
Bishop, Ronald L., and Neff, Hector 1989 Compositional Data Analysis in Archaeology. In Archaeological Chemistry AV, edited by Ralph Allen, pp. 576–586. Advances in Chemistry Series Vol. 220. American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Blanton, Dennis 1979 An Archaeological Survey of the Upper Satilla Basin. Early Georgia 7:43–73.Google Scholar
Borremans, Nina Thanz, and Shaak, Craig D. 1986 A Preliminary Report on Investigations of Sponge Spicules in Florida “Chalky” Pottery. Ceramic Notes 3:125–132.Google Scholar
Bronitsky, Gordon, and Hamer, Robert 1986 Experiments in Ceramic Technology: The Effects of Various Tempering Materials on Impact and Thermal-Shock Resistance. American Antiquity 51:89—101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, James A., Kerber, Richard A., and Winters, Howard D. 1990 Trade and the Evolution of Exchange Relations at the Beginning of the Mississippian Period. In The Mississippian Emergence, edited by Bruce Smith, pp. 251–274. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Joseph R. 1955 Reconnaissance of the Fuller Site, Dodge County, Georgia. Manuscript on file, South Georgia State College, Douglas.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Joseph R., and Waring, Antonio J. Jr. 1968 Some Chatham County Pottery Types and Their Sequence. In The Waring Papers: The Collected Works of Antonio J. Waring, Jr., edited by Stephen Williams, pp. 110–133. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Cobb, Charles R. 1991 Social Reproduction and the Longue Durée in the Prehistory of the Midcontinental United States. In Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies, edited by Robert Preucel, pp. 168–182. Occasional Paper No. 10. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Cobb, Charles R. 1993 Archaeological Approaches to the Political Economy of Nonstratified Societies. In Archaeological Method and Theory Volume 5, edited by Michael Schiffer, pp. 43–100. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Cobb, Charles R. 2000 From Quarry to Cornfield: The Political Economy of Mississippian Hoe Production. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Cogswell, James, Neff, Hector, and Glascock, Michael D. 1998 Analysis of Shell-tempered Pottery Replicates: Im plications for Provenance Studies. American Antiquity 63:63–72.Google Scholar
Cordell, Ann 1993 Chronological Variability in Ceramic Paste: A Comparison of Deptford and Savannah Period Pottery in the St. Marys River Region of Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. Southeastern Archaeology 12:33–58.Google Scholar
Crocker, Mark D. 1999 Geochemical Mapping in Georgia, USA: A Tool for Environmental Studies, Geological Mapping and Mineral Exploration. Journal of Geochemical Exploration 67:345–360.Google Scholar
Dalton, George 1977 Aboriginal Economics in Stateless Societies. In Exchange Systems in Prehistory, edited by Timothy Earle and Jonathon Ericson, pp. 191–212. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DePratter, Chester B. 1991 W.PA. Archaeological Excavations in Chatham County, Georgia: 1937–1942. Report No. 29. University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology, Athens.Google Scholar
Emerson, Thomas, E., and McElrath, Dale L. 2001 Interpreting Discontinuity and Historical Process in Midcontinental Late Archaic and Early Woodland Societies. In The Archaeology of Traditions, edited by Timothy Pauketat, pp. 195–217. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Ericson, Jonathon, and Baugh, Timothy 1994 Systematics of the Study of Prehistoric Regional Exchange in North America. In Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, edited by Timothy Baugh and Jonathon Ericson, pp. 3–15. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
Glascock, Michael D. 1992 Neutron Activation Analysis. In Chemical Characterization of Ceramic Pastes in Archaeology, edited by Hector Neff, pp. 11–26. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Grinker, Roy Richard 1994 Houses in the Rainforest: Ethnicity and Inequality among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa. University of California Press, Berkley.Google Scholar
Habicht-Mauche, Judith A. 2000 Pottery, Food, Hides, and Women: Labor, Production, and Exchange Across the Protohistoric Plains-Pueblo Frontier. In The Archaeology of Regional Interaction, edited by Michelle Hegmon, pp. 209–234. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Hally, David J. 1994 An Overview of Lamar Archeology. In Ocmulgee Archaeology: 1936–1986, edited by David Hally, pp. 144–174. University of Georgia Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Headland, Thomas N., and Reid, Lawrence A. 1989 Hunter-Gatherers and Their Neighbors from Prehistory to the Present. Current Anthropology 30:43–66.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Ned J., and Krause, Richard A. 2009 The Woodland-Mississippian Interface in Alabama, ca. 1075–1200: An Adaptive Radiation? Southeastern Archaeology 28:202–219.Google Scholar
Johnson, Jay K. 1994 Prehistoric Exchange in the Southeast. In Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, edited by Timothy Baugh and Jonathon Ericson, pp. 99–125. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
Kelly, Robert L. 1995 The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
King, Adam, and Meyers, Maureen S. 2002 Exploring the Edges of the Mississippian World. Southeastern Archaeology 21:113–116.Google Scholar
Lynott, Mark J., Neff, Hector, Price, James E., Cogswell, James W., and Glascock, Michael D. 2000 Inferences about Prehistoric Ceramics and Peoples in Southeast Missouri: Results of Ceramic Compositional Analysis. American Antiquity 65:103–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marquardt, William H. 1992 Dialectical Archaeology. In Archaeological Method and Theory Volume 4, edited by Michael Schiffer, pp. 101–140. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Marquardt, William H., and Crumley, Carole L. 1987 Theoretical Issues in the Analysis of Spatial Patterning. In Regional Dynamics: Burgundian Landscapes in Historical Perspective, edited by Carole Crumley and William Marquardt, pp. 1–18. Academic Press, San Diego.Google Scholar
Marrinan, Rochelle 2005 Early Mississippian Faunal Remains from the Shields Mound (8DU12). Florida Anthropologist 58:173–208.Google Scholar
Moore, Clarence B. 1894a Certain Sand Mounds of the St. Johns River, Florida, Part I. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 10:5–103.Google Scholar
Moore, Clarence B. 1894b Certain Sand Mounds of the St. Johns River, Florida, Part II. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 10:129–246.Google Scholar
Moore, Clarence B. 1895 Certain Sand Mounds of Duval County, Florida. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 10:448–502.Google Scholar
Nassaney, Michael S., and Sassaman, Kenneth E. 1995 Introduction. In Native American Interactions: Multiscalar Analysis and Interpretations in the Eastern Woodlands, edited by Michael Nassaney and Kenneth Sassaman, pp. x–xxxviii. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.Google Scholar
Neff, Hector (editor) 1992 Chemical Characterization of Ceramic Pastes in Archaeology. Prehistory Press, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Neff, Hector 1994 RQ-Mode Principal Components Analysis of Ceramic Compositional Data. Archaeometry 36:115–130.Google Scholar
Neff, Hector 2000 Neutron Activation Analysis for Provenance Determination in Archaeology. In Modern Analytical Methods in Art and Archaeology, edited by Enrico Cilibero and Guiseppe Spoto, pp. 81–134. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Neff, Hector 2002 Quantitative Techniques for Analyzing Ceramic Compositional Data. In Ceramic Source Determination in the Greater Southwest, Monograph 44, edited by Donna Glowacki and Hector Neff, pp. 15–36. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Parsons, Alexandra, and Marrinan, Rochelle 2013 An Assessment of Coastal Faunal Data. In Life Among the Tides: Recent Archaeology on the Georgia Bight, edited by Victor Thompson and David Thomas, pp. 47–74. Anthropological Papers No. 98. American Museum of Natural History, New York.Google Scholar
Pinet, Paul R., and Morgan, Warren P. 1979 Implications of clay-provenance studies in two Georgia estuaries. Journal of Sedimentary Research 49:575–580.Google Scholar
Price, George, and Tucker, Bryan 2003 New Data from the Cannon Site: A Thirteenth Century Burial from Lake Blackshear. Early Georgia 31:5–22.Google Scholar
Rolland, Vicki 2004 Measuring Tradition and Variation: A St. Johns II Pottery Assemblage from the Shields Site (8DU12). Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee.Google Scholar
Rye, O. 1976 Keeping Your Temper Under Control. Archaeological and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 11:106–137.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall A. 1972 Stone Age Economics. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2001 Hunter-Gatherers and Traditions of Resistance. In The Archaeology of Traditions, edited by Timothy Pauketat, pp. 218–236. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2011 History and Alterity in the Eastern Archaic. In Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology as Historical Process, edited by Kenneth Sassaman and Donald Holly Jr., pp. 187–208. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Schortman, Edward M., and Urban, Patricia A. 1987 Modeling Interregional Interaction in Prehistory. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory Volume 11, edited by Michael Schiffer, pp. 37–95. Academic Press, Orlando.Google Scholar
Snow, Frankie 1977 An Archaeological Survey of the Ocmulgee Big Bend Region: A Preliminary Report. Occasional Papers from South Georgia No. 3. South Georgia College, Douglas.Google Scholar
Snow, Frankie 1990 Pine Barrens Lamar. In Lamar Archaeology: Mississippian Chiefdoms in the Deep South, edited by Mark Williams and Gary Shapiro, pp. 82–93. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Solway, Jacqueline S., and Lee, Richard B. 1990 Foragers, Genuine or Spurious? Current Anthropology 31:109–147.Google Scholar
Spielmann, Katherine, and Eder, J. F. 1994 Hunters and Farmers: Then and Now. Annual Review of Anthropology 23:303–323.Google Scholar
Stein, Gil J. 2002 From Passive Periphery to Active Agents: Emerging Perspectives in the Archaeology of Interregional Interaction. American Anthropologist 104:903–916.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Donald Keith 1990 Investigation of Ocmulgee Cord-Marked Pottery Sites in the Big Bend Region of Georgia. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Donald Keith, and King, Adam 1992 At the Center of Peripheries: Late Woodland Persistence in the Interior Coastal Plain of Georgia. Paper presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Little Rock.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Keith, King, Adam, and Snow, Frankie 1996 Middle Mississippian Occupation in the Ocmulgee Big Bend Region. Early Georgia 24:1—41.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Keith, and Snow, Frankie 2004 Swift Creek to Square Ground Lamar: Situating the Ocmulgee Big Bend in Calibrated Time. Early Georgia 32:127–160.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael 1993 Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Tucker, Bryan D. 2007 Ocmulgee/Blackshear People and the Middleman Hypothesis: An Isotopic Evaluation. Southeastern Archaeology 26:124–133.Google Scholar
Turck, John A. 2011 Geoarchaeological Analysis of Two Back-barrier Islands and Their Relationship to the Changing Landscape of Coastal Georgia, USA. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens.Google Scholar
Waggoner, James C. Jr. 2006 A Techno-Functional Analysis of Fiber-Tempered Pottery from the Squeaking Tree Site (9Tf5), Telfair County, Georgia. Early Georgia 34:3–16.Google Scholar
Wallis, Neill J. 2011 The Swift Creek Gift: Vessel Exchange on the Atlantic Coast. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Wallis, Neill J., Boulanger, Matthew, Ferguson, Jeffrey R., and Glascock, Michael D. 2010 Woodland Period Ceramic Provenance and the Exchange of Swift Creek Complicated Stamped Pottery in the Southeastern United States. Journal of Archaeological Science 37:2598–2611.Google Scholar
Wallis, Neill J., and Kamenov, George D. 2013 Challenges in the Analysis of Heterogeneous Pottery by LA-ICP-MS: A Comparison with INAA. Archaeometry 55:893–909.Google Scholar
Williams, Mark 1994 The Origins of the Macon Plateau Site. In Ocmulgee Archaeology: 1936–1986, edited by David Hally, pp. 130–137. University of Georgia Press, Athens.Google Scholar
Windom, Herbert L., and Neal, William J. 1971 Mineralogy of sediments in three Georgia Estuaries. Journal of Sedimentary Research 41:497–504.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric 1982 Europe and the People without History. University of California Press, Berkley.Google Scholar
Woodburn, James 1988 African Hunter-Gatherer Social Organization: Is it Best Understood as a Product of Encapsulation? In Hunter and Gatherers Volume 1: History, Evolution and Social Change, edited by Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn, pp. 31–64. Berg, Oxford.Google Scholar
Zedeño, María Nieves 1995 The Role of Population Movement and Technology Transfer in the Manufacture of Southwestern Ceramics. In Ceramic Production in the American Southwest, edited by Barbara Mills and Patricia Crown, pp. 115–141. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar