Matthew C. Sanger

EVIDENCE FOR SIGNIFICANT SUBTERRANEAN STORAGE AT TWO HUNTER-GATHERER SITES: THE PRESENCE OF A MAST-BASED ECONOMY IN THE LATE ARCHAIC COASTAL AMERICAN SOUTHEAST

Excavations at two Late Archaic shell rings on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, revealed evidence of significant amounts of subterranean storage. Based on botanical evidence, ethonographic analogies, and interpretations of other Late Archaic sites, hickory nuts and acorns are the most likely resource being stored, and quantifying the capacity found at each ring highlights the prevalence and importance of mast storage. These findings are important because large-scale storage has rarely been proposed for Late Archaic coastal peoples and, therefore, its impact as a potential factor for social changes enacted during this time period, including increasing sedentism, formalization of intragroup relations, and regionalization of cultural identities, has yet to be explored. Excavaciones en dos anillos de concha correspondientes al Arcaico Tardío de la isla de St. Catherines, Georgia, obtuvieron significativas evidencias de almacenaje subterráneo. Con base en evidencia botánica, analogías etnográficas e interpretaciones de otros sitios del Arcaico Tardío, es probable que las nueces de nogal y las bellotas fueran los recursos almacenados. Cuantificando la capacidad registrada en cada anillo, se destaca la prevalencia e importancia del almacenamiento de bellotas. Estos hallazgos son importantes pues el almacenamiento a larga escala raramente ha sido propuesto para los pueblos costeros del Arcaico Tardío. Por lo tanto, aún no se ha explorado su impacto como factor potencial para cambios sociales promulgados durante este período, incluyendo el incremento del sedentarismo, la formulación de relaciones intragrupo y la regionalización de identidades culturales.

Coils, slabs, and molds: examining community affiliation between Late Archaic shell ring communities using radiographic imagery of pottery

ABSTRACT Radiographic imaging is used to determine the techniques used to form vessels from two contemporaneous Late Archaic shell rings in coastal Georgia. These data, in concert with decorative and technofunctional data, suggest that different potting communities occupied each ring. The presence of different communities at each ring corresponds with larger regional patterns in which localized socio-political bodies developed during the Late Archaic. The findings offered in this paper suggest that localized groups did not exist in isolation but rather lived near one another for centuries.

Automated mound detection using lidar and object-based image analysis in Beaufort County, South Carolina

ABSTRACT The study of precontact anthropogenic mounded features—earthen mounds, shell heaps, and shell rings—in the American Southeast is stymied by the spotty distribution of systematic surveys across the region. Many extant, yet unidentified, archaeological mound features continue to evade detection due to the heavily forested canopies that occupy large areas of the region, making pedestrian surveys difficult and preventing aerial observation. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) is a tool for analyzing light and radar (lidar) data and offers an inexpensive opportunity to address this challenge. Using publicly available lidar data from Beaufort County, South Carolina, and an OBIA approach that incorporates morphometric classification and statistical template matching, we systematically identify over 160 previously undetected mound features. This result improves our overall knowledge of settlement patterns by providing systematic knowledge about past landscapes.

Early metal use and crematory practices in the American Southeast

Significance Chemical sourcing of a Late Archaic (ca. 4100–3980 cal B.P.) copper artifact reveals extensive trade networks linking the coastal southeastern United States with the Great Lakes. Found alongside the cremated remains of at least seven individuals and in the direct center of a plaza defined by a circular shell midden, the copper artifact demonstrates the existence of long-distance networks that transmitted both objects and mortuary practices. In contrast with models that assume coastal hunter-gatherer-fishers typically lived in small, simple societies, we propose that trading for and utilizing copper is evidence of emergent hierarchical social organization during the Archaic and the likelihood that power was gained and displayed during large-scale gatherings and ceremonial events. Long-distance exchange of copper objects during the Archaic Period (ca. 8000–3000 cal B.P.) is a bellwether of emergent social complexity in the Eastern Woodlands. Originating from the Great Lakes, the Canadian Maritimes, and the Appalachian Mountains, Archaic-age copper is found in significant amounts as far south as Tennessee and in isolated pockets at major trade centers in Louisiana but is absent from most of the southeastern United States. Here we report the discovery of a copper band found with the cremated remains of at least seven individuals buried in the direct center of a Late Archaic shell ring located in coastal Georgia. Late Archaic shell rings are massive circular middens thought to be constructed, in part, during large-scale ritual gatherings and feasting events. The exotic copper and cremated remains are unique in coastal South Carolina and Georgia where Archaic-age cremations are conspicuously absent and no other Archaic copper objects have been reported. Elemental data produced through laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry shows the copper originated from the Great Lakes, effectively extending Archaic copper exchange almost 1,000 km beyond its traditional boundaries. Similarities in mortuary practices and the presence of copper originating from the Great Lakes reveal the presence of long-distance exchange relations spanning vast portions of the eastern United States and suggest an unexpected level of societal complexity at shell ring localities. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that elite actors solidified their positions through ritual gatherings and the long-distance exchange of exotic objects during the Archaic.

Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America: An Interpretive Guide. Cheryl Claassen. 2015. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, xiv + 385 pp.

Ohio Valley pottery is suggested to have been crushed and added, but how this was determined was not stated. While local raw materials, some of which were analyzed, are sedimentary in character, granitic sands are available. Likewise, the inclusions in the southeastern pottery (clay samples were not analyzed), are suggested to be either finely crushed rocks or natural to alluvial sediments. Wisely, the point-counting did not separate out temper for these samples. Thus, potential problems could occur when point-count parameters are based on such a distinction and the paste data between samples from widely separate sites are similar.