Under the supervision of Dr. Rochelle A. Marrinan, Alexandra Parsons will analyze material excavated from the Guana shell ring, an archaeological site near St. Augustine, Florida. Shell rings are circular piles of refuse that, as the name implies, consist primarily of shell. They are located along the coast of the southeast United States, and the majority date to the Late Archaic period (ca. 5,000-2,500 B.P.). Parsons' primary research objective is to determine whether people occupied and utilized the Guana shell ring either on a year-round basis or seasonally. It is important to understand the duration of occupation at the Guana site and others like it, as considerable social changes often coincide with sedentary and semi-sedentary site occupations. For example, sedentary societies must avoid overexploitation of local resources, whereas mobile societies can more fully exploit resources and then move to another location. Additionally, a shift from a seasonally migratory to a semi- or fully sedentary lifestyle has implications for social and political organization. In order to determine if people lived at the Guana shell ring year-round, Ms Parsons will examine quahog clams, which were an important food resource for Guana residents as evidenced by their significant numbers throughout the shell ring. Quahogs produce two annual growth rings in their shells, similar to the annual rings in trees. One can determine the season of death for archaeological clams by comparing the amount of growth in the final annual ring to quahogs in a modern comparative collection (with a known season of death). It is imperative to have modern collection located in the area of the archaeological site because studies have shown latitudinal differences in the timing of seasonal clam growth. Ms Parsons will create a new modern comparative collection for the St. Augustine area by gathering living quahogs once a month for one year. This collection will allow her to generate profiles of expected growth for each season, which will be used to determine the season of death for the archaeological clams at the Guana shell ring. Seasonality of clams and other vertebrate animals will then be used to infer seasons of occupation at Guana. The project contributes directly to the study of Southeastern prehistory as well as to the broader anthropological discussion of sedentism and how it is observed archaeologically, particularly within coastal zones. It will contribute to the growing body of seasonality data for Southeastern coastal sites, which will help elucidate local and regional patterns of sedentism or mobility. The seasonal profiles and other data from the modern comparative collection assembled by Parsons will be available in the dissertation and published in peer-reviewed journals. This will provide other archaeologists with the data to asses clam seasonality at the numerous prehistoric and historic shell middens in the St. Augustine area. The clam collection may also refine the methodology of clam seasonality studies by highlighting variability between other clam collections. The project will involve training at least one undergraduate student in the methodology of clam seasonality and its practical application to the archaeological record. Finally, by examining the spatial patterning of clam seasonality within the ring, the research may increase scientific understanding of how shell rings were used.
This project evaluates the subsistence practices (what people ate and how they acquired food) at an archaeological site in northeast Florida that is approximately 3,500 years old. The project proposed to examine subsistence in order to understand whether occupants of the site lived there year round and to understand how resources, especially quahog clams, fit into the daily diet. Archaeologists are interested in when societies began to settle down on the landscape, or became sedentary, because this involves more than just staying in one place: social behaviors must change to cope with staying a single location for an extended period of time. These behaviors may include changing what food is eaten and when, changes in the material goods people possess, or can involve the development of social hierarchy. To address these research interests, the investigators proposed to evaluate the seasons in which quahog clams were exploited. One can identify the season in which quahog clams were gathered by examining their internal growth structures and comparing them to known local seasonal growth patterns. To this end, the investigators assembled a modern clam collection consisting of at least 35 clams for every month in 2010. This collection is being used to understand the local seasonal pattern of growth in order to interpret the season of death for archaeological clams. The publication of this data (in the dissertation and in journal articles) will allow other researchers to conduct clam seasonality studies in the St. Augustine area. The modern collection may also help define acceptable distances between a modern clam collection and the archaeological site in question. The research for this project is not yet complete. However, preliminary results indicate that Native Americans occupying this archaeological site had a diet focused on fish and shellfish that were obtained from a nearby estuary. Preliminary results indicate that clams were primarily gathered in the cooler months of winter and spring, and further analysis may indicate a more specific season or seasons. If the preliminary results are correct, this site fits into an exploitation pattern observed at a few contemporary sites in coastal Georgia, and several more recent prehistoric sites in northeast Florida (around 500 to 1000 years ago). The results of this study could extend this pattern of cool-weather clam exploitation thousands of years earlier than is currently known in northeast Florida. Once the research is complete, the investigators will be able to identify the seasons that clams were gathered by Native Americans living at the site 3,500 years ago. The research gives archaeologists clues as to how Native Americans interacted with their environment, a growing concern in archaeological research. The research contributes to the study of Southeast U.S. prehistory, and to discussions of sedentism and it’s detection through archaeological study. The project also contributes to the growing body of seasonality data in the Southeast U.S., which will help elucidate patterns of resource exploitation and sedentism. These patterns of resource exploitation could help us to discern cultural groups in areas where pottery or other artifact types are similar or indistinguishable.
