Asa R. Randall

LiDAR-aided reconnaissance and reconstruction of lost landscapes: An example of freshwater shell mounds (ca. 7500–500 cal b.p.) in northeastern Florida

Abstract LiDAR datasets, from which high-resolution topographic maps can be generated, are becoming commonplace in archaeological analyses. Like any remote sensing technique, LiDAR records only a limited range of phenomena and the data are a snapshot of ground conditions at the time of collection. The temporally specific nature of LiDAR is problematic at sites with postdepositional destruction. This paper presents a method for identifying and recovering lost landscapes by combining LiDAR, archival aerial photographs, historical observations, and fieldwork. This method was developed to reconstruct the topography of ancient shell mounds constructed by hunter-gatherers on the St. Johns River in northeastern Florida (ca. 7500–500 cal b.p.) and altered by modern land use. The reconstructions demonstrate the influence of ancient communities on modern landscapes and can be used as a basis for further analyses of hunter-gatherer land use, social interaction, and cosmology.

Stallings island revisited : New evidence for occupational history, community pattern, and subsistence technology

For nearly 150 years Stallings Island, Georgia has figured prominently in the conceptualization of Late Archaic culture in the American Southeast, most notably in its namesake pottery series, the oldest in North America, and more recently, in models of economic change among hunter-gatherer societies broadly classified as the Shell Mound Archaic. Recent fieldwork resulting in new radiocarbon assays from secure contexts pushes back the onset of intensive shellfish gathering at Stallings Island several centuries; enables recognition of a hiatus in occupation that coincides with the regional advent of pottery making; and places abandonment at ca. 3500 B.P. Analysis of collections and unpublished field records from a 1929 Peabody expedition suggests that the final phase of occupation involved the construction of a circular village and plaza complex with household storage and a formalized cemetery, as well as technological innovations to meet the demands of increased settlement permanence. Although there are too few data to assess the degree to which more permanent settlement led to population-resource imbalance, several lines of evidence suggest that economic changes were stimulated by ritual intensification.

THE CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY OF MOUNT TAYLOR PERIOD (CA. 7400–4600 CAL B.P.) SHELL SITES ON THE MIDDLE ST. JOHNS RIVER, FLORIDA

Abstract Mount Taylor period (ca. 7400–4600 cal. B.P.) shell mounds on the St. Johns River in northeast Florida were some of the first Archaic freshwater shell sites to be documented in the Southeast. However, there is much that remains unknown about their chronology, history, and changing significance through time. This paper presents a regional chronology ofMount Taylor shell sites based on radiocarbon assays from well-documented contexts. Three major changes in the distribution, arrangement, and use of shell sites are identified which correspond with significant shifts in social interaction and environmental change. An examination of the contexts of shell deposition demonstrates that shell sites were frequently established as places to dwell and were subsequently transformed into places of commemorative ceremony or mortuary ritual. The history of Mount Taylor shell sites has implications for the broader debate on whether shell sites were middens or monuments.

Time, agency and the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene is here, but do we need the Anthropocene, and if so, when do we want it to start? My responses are ‘no’ and ‘never’ if the answers to those questions require a discrete definition of the Anthropocene and a specific start date. In that regard, I agree generally with Brajes arguments. Particularly unsettling in Anthropocene discourse (in archaeology or geology) has been the search for discernable origins in the form of golden spikes, and I am suspicious of even setting the Holocene as an Anthropocene equivalent. That stated, archaeology can and should continue to contribute to interdisciplinary Anthropocene dialogues.

Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies: Orality, Memory, and the Transmission of Culture. LYNNE KELLY. 2015. Cambridge University Press, New York. xxvi + 276 pp.

occurred among certain Pomoan, Wintuan, and Yokuts groups (Murdock, Ethnographic Atlas, 1967:106). He uses the term Yokut inaccurately, as if it were a singular form for Yokuts. A greater weakness, and one that Bettinger acknowledges, is that his sample does not include the maritime-adapted Chumash, perhaps the most politically complex and populous group in aboriginal California. However, Bettinger occasionally discusses patterns in the Chumash region that were at variance with sociopolitical developments elsewhere. For example, he addresses how and why local sociopolitical organization responded differently to the bow and arrow (p. 109) and proposes a new hypothesis (pp. 156–159) as to why the Chumash uniquely practiced matrilocal postmarital residence. In summary, Bettinger’s book represents a major contribution to anthropological analyses of aboriginal societies in Native California, and it will stimulate research that will amplify and further test his model and interpretations.

99.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-107-05937-5.

This work has to be the most comprehensive report and analysis based on limited testing ever conducted for an archaeological site. The analyses of the excavations and artifacts are truly impressive and provide a new level of information on south Florida sites not previously presented. Just about everything that ever pertained to the Pineland site is presented here. While I do not necessarily agree with some of the conclusions, namely, that there is any shift in adaptation caused by sea-level fluctuations, this is not what matters because the data that are presented can be used in a number of ways independent of the reconstructions based on them. This is a tour de force and a must-have monograph for Florida archaeologists.