Rebecca Saunders

COASTAL DYNAMICS AND CULTURAL OCCUPATIONS ON CHOCTAWHATCHEE BAY, FLORIDA, U.S.A.

Abstract A multidisciplinary project on an archaeological site on the Mitchell River, which feeds into Choctawhatchee Bay on the Florida panhandle, was designed to understand human adaptations to a dynamic hydrological environment during the Middle and Late Archaic period (ca. 8000–3000 B.P.). Now in a freshwater environment, on a sandy terrace above the Mitchell River floodplain, the Mitchell River 1 archaeological site contains an oyster-shell midden and other features indicating human exploitation of an estuarine environment. Estuarine exploitation at the site occurred over a long span of time, from around 7300 to 3400 2cal B.P., although the site was abandoned two or three times over the millennia. The site was more permanently abandoned after 3400 B.P. Because estuarine shellfish, such as oysters, are low trophic level species, they have been considered marginal resources, and archaeologists modeling collector strategies assume that people will not travel far to obtain them. Under an optimal foraging model, estuarine resources should have been closer to the site than at present. A multidisciplinary team was assembled to address whether a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand had produced estuarine conditions in the Mitchell River floodplain during the Archaic. Using microfossils and stratigraphy from a dated core taken in the floodplain due south of the site, the project members attempted to correlate the changing paleoenvironment with human occupation and abandonment of the area. Results indicate that, at ca. 7300 cal B.P., when the Mitchell River 1 site was first inhabited, the floodplain was a shallow, open, sedge marsh. The site inhabitants must have traveled some distance to gather the oysters and other estuarine species that were discarded on the site. The earliest occupation was brief, but the site was reoccupied between 5900 and 5300 cal B.P., when the floodplain had become a Taxodium/Nyssa swamp. Site deposits indicate intensive exploitation of oyster and to a lesser extent Rangia, which may have been closer to the site than at 7300 B.P. but still would have required some travel. At some point, the mouth of the Mitchell River was forced eastward, and the bayhead delta, recognized as a 2-meter-deep wedge of sand in the core, was located adjacent to the site. By 4700 cal B.P., brackish water conditions prevailed, although direct evidence of oyster beds in the immediate area is lacking. Unfortunately, scouring of the core sediments sometime after 4700 cal B.P. destroyed the paleoenvironmental record for the last part of the Archaic occupation of the site. However, some evidence in Core 1, along with research elsewhere on the Florida panhandle, suggests that catastrophic storms may have played a part in the more permanent abandonment of the site after 3400 B.P.

Mission-period settlement structure: A test of the model at san martín de Timucua

Beginning in 1968, the Florida Division of Historical Resources sponsored several small-scale testing programs of Spanish mission sites in northern Florida. A formal model of Mission-period settlement structure emerged from those excavations. However, more recent excavations involving large block exposures at a few mission compounds have shown settlement structure to be more complex, and less regular, than modeled. Such is the case at San Martín de Timucua. Recent excavations there have demonstrated that the imposition of the preexisting model on results from previous limited excavations has resulted in misinterpretations of structure architecture and function as well as site layout. These results demonstrate that long-term commitments to extensive excavations will be necessary to understand intrasite settlement patterns in Florida missions.

The Use of Crossover Immunoelectrophoresis to Detect Human Blood Protein in Soil from an Ambush Scene in Kosovo

Abstract:  This study examines the survivability of human blood proteins in soils from a year and a half old ambush scene in Kosovo. A total of 72 soil samples were collected, a number of which were directly associated with bone fragments or bullet projectiles. The samples were examined using crossover immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP) to determine the presence of blood protein and species affiliation. Human blood proteins were identified in 44 of the 72 samples (61%) with the majority of the positive observations (29 of 44) found 0.0–4.5 cm below ground surface (65%). Chi‐squared and two‐sample difference of proportions tests confirmed significant differences between samples with and without associated physical evidence and the presence and depth of human blood proteins. While DNA has largely replaced immunological analysis in forensic analyses, our results suggest that in particular situations, CIEP may still be a valuable tool in criminology.

Deep Surfaces: Pottery Decoration and Identity in the Mission Period

In the southeastern United States, many Native American societies invested iconographic meaning in the surface decorations incised or stamped on pottery. While some symbols represented cosmological concepts, others probably designated tribe, village, clan, or other social units. This is certainly true of groups that lived in La Florida, where, at contact, there were clear correlations between some Native American groups and pottery types. During the mission period, however, these associations became blurred. Variability diminished, and three pottery types dominated assemblages of utilitarian wares used by Native Americans and Spaniards. Heretofore, this stylistic turn of events was explained as the result of new allegiances and identities that emerged in the 1600s. It is argued here that, in the Southeast (as elsewhere), the market was responsible for some of this uniformity. Cosmological concepts present in the prehistoric variant of one of these types were retained for some time, however.