Under the guidance of Dr. Kenneth Sassaman, Zackary Gilmore will analyze ancient pottery from Florida to investigate the role of large-scale, monumental places in facilitating social interaction among culturally diverse groups of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Important archaeological places exist worldwide where disparate groups gathered together for purposes of exchange, ritual, and monument construction. Frequently, the interaction fostered by these places produced new types of social formations and affected the historical trajectories of entire regions. Between 7200 and 3500 years ago, the inhabitants of Florida's St. Johns River Valley built dozens of mounds out of freshwater shellfish remains. Evidence suggests that these places were at the center of pivotal regional developments including the construction of early monumental architecture, the adoption of pottery technology, and the establishment of sedentism and distinct tribal identities. Despite this fact, little agreement has been reached regarding even their most basic functions and meanings within the societies that built and inhabited them.
This research is designed to identify the types and scales of social interaction engaged in during the construction and use of shell mounds at the Silver Glen Run (SGR) complex in northeast Florida. Occupied for most of the past 7,000 years, between 2,500 and 2,000 B.C., this complex's inhabitants constructed two of the region's largest shell mounds and deposited hundreds of pottery vessels associated with one of the continent's earliest ceramic technologies. To better understand the economic and social importance of the complex, this project employs two complementary types of pottery analysis. First, related sourcing techniques (Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis [INAA] and petrography) will be used to characterize the chemical and mineralogical constituents of the SGR sherds. Comparing these results to clay reference samples with known source locations will help determine the geographic origins of the various constituent groups who gathered at SGR. Second, technological and stylistic analysis will reveal the intended functions (cooking, serving, storage, etc.) for which vessels were manufactured, along with the social conditions (e.g., small domestic meal vs. large communal feast) in which they were used. Together, these analyses provide the opportunity to gain a more nuanced understanding of the role played by this and similar sites in the social histories of Florida's prehistoric hunter-gatherers.
Beyond its direct archaeological significance, this research contributes to undergraduate education by providing opportunities for volunteer participation in the sorting and cataloging of archaeological pottery. It is also inter-institutional in nature, bringing together resources and expertise from three public research institutions, as well as a private organization. Technological analysis will be conducted at the University of Florida (UF). The petrographic analysis will be conducted at the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) and INAA at the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center. All of these will make use of extant collections at the FLMNH. In addition, this research will compile and analyze data that will be disseminated to public and private organizations on whose land the Silver Glen Run complex is located. Results of the investigations will be made available in the form of presentations, technical reports, and other printed materials that will make the institutions more knowledgeable and effective stewards of the considerable archaeological resources under their control. Results and raw data will also be made publicly available on the LSA website (www.anthro.ufl.edu/LSA/).
This research was designed to identify the types and scales of social interaction engaged in during the construction and use of shell mounds in Florida’s St. Johns River Valley. Between 5300 and 1500 B.C., the inhabitants of this area built hundreds of massive mounds out of freshwater shellfish remains. Evidence suggests that these places were at the center of pivotal regional developments including the construction of early monumental architecture, the adoption of pottery technology, and the establishment of sedentism and distinct tribal identities. Despite this fact, little agreement has been reached regarding even their most basic functions and meanings within the societies that built and used them. This award was used to investigate the kinds of social interaction that took place at one particular shell mound center, the Silver Glen Run complex. During what is known as the Orange period (ca. 2500 to 1500 B.C.), this complex’s inhabitants constructed two of the region’s largest shell mounds and deposited hundreds of pottery vessels associated with one of the continent’s earliest ceramic technologies. In order to better understand the kinds of activities conducted at these mounds, this project employed two complementary types of pottery analysis. First, I used related sourcing techniques (Neutron Activation Analysis [NAA] and petrography) to characterize the chemical and mineralogical constituents of the SGR pottery sherds and a number of clay reference samples. By comparing the pottery and clays, I hoped to determine the social scale of the Orange period events that were held at SGR by identifying the geographic origins of the various groups who gathered there. Second, I conducted technological and stylistic analyses in order to reveal the intended functions (cooking, serving, storage, etc.) for which pottery vessels were manufactured, along with the social conditions (e.g., small domestic meal vs. large communal feast) in which they were used. The results of the NAA and petrographic analysis indicate that Orange pottery was transported to Silver Glen Run from a number of different locations, including some examples that likely originated more than 200 km to the southwest of the site. I also determined that the pottery vessels that were deposited at the mounds were on average significantly larger, thicker-walled, and more elaborately decorated than those from non-mound areas of the complex. These data support the notion that at least some shell mounds functioned as large-scale gathering places that integrated prehistoric groups from throughout much of the state of Florida. Most directly, this research contributes to understanding of types and scales of social interaction engaged in by Orange period societies in northeast Florida. Traditional archaeological consensus has been that, aside from the development of pottery technology, this period, much like the rest of the Archaic, was characterized by few, if any, significant changes in the basic lifeways of local hunter-gatherers. While recent research has begun to discredit this view, Orange period peoples and the places that they inhabited remain woefully understudied and poorly understood. This study constitutes an important step in changing that. This research also addresses one of the most contentious and frequently recurring debates in the archaeology of the Southeast, namely that surrounding the economic, social, and/or ritual significance of Archaic shell mounds. It has yielded quantitative scientific data suggesting that shell mounds were not simple oversized villages but were instead the sites of regional-scale social gatherings. My results will help evaluate competing hypotheses and achieve a more nuanced understanding of this critical period of Southeastern prehistory. This research is also relevant for broader anthropological theory concerning hunter-gatherer societies. Modern hunter-gatherers, characterized by high levels of mobility, simple social organizations, and strictly egalitarian political structures, have often been considered representative of the natural, primitive state of all non-agricultural groups, both past and present. While many theorists now recognize the modern hunter-gatherer condition as a form of active resistance rather than evolutionary under-development, evidence for alternative, relatively complex hunter-gatherer social forms in the past is dependent solely on archaeological data of the type obtained here. Shell mounds, as large-scale gathering places and durable monuments, are not easy to reconcile with traditional evolutionary views on hunter-gatherer architecture. Consequently, this study not only enhances archaeological understanding, but also has the potential to more broadly affect the ways in which hunter-gatherers are viewed and represented. Beyond its anthropological significance, this research contributed to undergraduate education by providing opportunities for volunteer participation in the sorting and cataloging of archaeological pottery. It was also inter-institutional in nature, bringing together resources and expertise from three public research institutions and a private organization. Results have been made available in the form of presentations, technical reports, and other printed materials that will help make the institutions more knowledgeable and effective stewards of the considerable archaeological resources under their control. Results and raw data will soon be made publicly available on the LSA website (www.anthro.ufl.edu/LSA/).
