Coastal Dynamics and Cultural Complexity on Choctawhatchee Bay

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge LA

Investigators

Abstract

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Rebecca Saunders, Gregory Mikell, and their colleagues will explore the relationship between changing coastal landscapes and cultural complexity at two sites above Choctawhatchee Bay, Florida. The sites appear to be part of a relatively large number (16) of middle Archaic sites exploiting the sandy terrace above the Mitchell River floodplain around 7000-5000 years ago. When these two habitation sites were occupied, however, the floodplain environment appears to have been quite different from the freshwater marsh that is present today. Mitchell River sites #1 and #4 contain dense shell midden (trash piles) composed of saltwater shellfish and fish species. The researchers suspect that sea level was higher 6000 years ago, and that estuarine conditions prevailed in the floodplain immediately adjacent to the site. Their position on the terrace has preserved the Mitchell River sites and they are among the earliest coastal adaptations yet identified in the southeastern United States. A fall in sea level may have precipitated site abandonment at about the same time that pottery began to appear in the region (ca. 2200 years ago). When the site was re-occupied around A.D. 1000, no shellfish-of estuarine, brackish, or freshwater species-were exploited, leading the researchers to speculate that the terrace was not again an attractive habitation spot until horticulture was adopted by Native Americans in the region. The investigators have marshalled an arsenal of investigative techniques to reconstruct the coastal geomorphology and archaeology of the Mitchell River area. One field season of excavation is directed towards a reconstruction of the lifeways of the inhabitants of Mitchell River #1 and #4. Systematic subsurface testing and block excavations will uncover information on: diet, seasons of site occupation(s), time period of occupation, intrasite settlement pattern, degree of sedentism, long distance trade, and, to the extent possible, on social and political organization. Collaborations between the archaeologists and a coastal geomorphologist (Dr. Gregory Stone), a palynologist (Dr. John Wrenn), a diatomist (Dr. William Krebs), a paleobotanist (Katherine Roberts), a zooarchaeologist (Irvy R. Quitmeyer), and specialists in fish otolith (earbone) seasonality (Coastal Fisheries Institute, LSU) will allow the principal investigators to correlate changes in the dynamic coastal environment with changes in flora and fauna. These, in turn, will be used to inform the study of the adaptation of Native Americans to the coast. The investigators believe that their results can be used by researchers worldwide to study early coastal adaptations and the development of cultural complexity. Results will also be of interest to geologists and other researchers interested in sea level rise, coastal dynamics, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction.