Intensification revisited: assessing resource specialization at Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41), Florida

Duke, C. Trevor; Pluckhahn, Thomas J.; Compton, J. Matthew

doi:10.1080/0734578x.2020.1752612

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In recent investigations at Crystal River, Robert's Island, and several other Woodland-period (ca. 1000 BC–AD 1000) mound centers on Florida's north-peninsular Gulf Coast, archaeologists have reconstructed traditions of faunal estuarine resource intensification tied to ceremonial feasting, mound-building, mortuary interment, and world-renewal (Duke et al 2020; Goodwin et al 2019; Sampson 2015; Sassaman et al 2020; Wallis and McFadden 2020). While these studies emphasize mass-captured faunal resources, namely oyster and small estuarine fishes, the evidence reported here justifies further archaeological consideration of wetland geophytes as important risk-reducing subsistence resources.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Archaeological discussions of estuarine resource intensification, ceremonial aggregation, and village formation on the Florida Gulf Coast have recently reinvigorated investigation of ancient Native American mass-capture technologies first hypothesized by Cushing ([1897] 2000) (Mahar 2019; Sassaman et al 2020; Thompson et al 2020). Analyses of vertebrate zooarchaeological assemblages at Crystal River/Roberts Island (Duke et al 2020), Shell Mound (Sassaman et al 2020), and other north peninsular Gulf Coast sites (e.g., Jenkins 2019) have emphasized the dietary and economic importance of demersal and schooling pelagic fishes that would have been most efficiently harvested with trap and net technologies. Ethnohistoric accounts (Hann 1991:311), technological studies (Walker 2000), and rigorous experimental-archaeological work by Mahar (2019) attest to the wide-spread use of nets by Indigenous Gulf Coast peoples.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent zooarchaeological work, Duke and colleagues (2020) analyzed invertebrate and vertebrate assemblages from well-dated contexts within a 1 × 2 m test unit excavated into a central portion of the midden ridge at the Crystal River site. Biodiversity and equitability estimates calculated from these data were compared with like estimates from zooarchaeological assemblages collected from two 50 × 50 cm shovel tests at the Robert's Island mound complex (8CI41)—an island-hammock site roughly one kilometer downstream that was established as occupational and civic-ceremonial use of the Crystal River site waned in the seventh and eighth centuries AD.…”

Section: Archaeology Of the Crystal River Site (8ci1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Biodiversity and equitability estimates calculated from these data were compared with like estimates from zooarchaeological assemblages collected from two 50 × 50 cm shovel tests at the Robert's Island mound complex (8CI41)—an island-hammock site roughly one kilometer downstream that was established as occupational and civic-ceremonial use of the Crystal River site waned in the seventh and eighth centuries AD. Duke and colleagues (2020) find that assemblages at Robert's Island exhibit considerably less biodiversity and equitability estimates than those from Crystal River—indicating a trend of decreasing diet breadth that they attribute to the development of corporate resource intensification strategies designed to mitigate environmental perturbation and negotiate new socio-political dynamics. The intensified harvesting of oyster ( Crassostrea virginica ) and marsh clam ( Polymesoda caroliniana ) at Robert's Island appears to drive this biodiversity trend and may also signal increased utilization of oligohaline marsh habitats (see Heard 1982:21).…”

Section: Archaeology Of the Crystal River Site (8ci1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its documented ethnobotanical uses are predominantly medicinal and ceremonial. It is used in topical poultices for wounds, in medicinal washes/baths, within internal medicines as a mild tranquilizer, and in ceremonial emetics taken during ritual fasting (Austin 2003;Hamel Journal of Ethnobiology 2020 40(4): 569-589 ceremonial feasting, mound-building, mortuary interment, and world-renewal (Duke et al 2020;Goodwin et al 2019;Sampson 2015;Sassaman et al 2020;Wallis and McFadden 2020). While these studies emphasize mass-captured faunal resources, namely oyster and small estuarine fishes, the evidence reported here justifies further archaeological consideration of wetland geophytes as important risk-reducing subsistence resources.…”

Section: Lizard's Tail (Saururus Cernuus)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Invisible Things Forgotten: A Multi-Proxy Study of Wetland Plant Use at a Precolumbian Village on the Gulf Coast of Florida

Jackson

Pluckhahn

Duke

2020

Journal of Ethnobiology

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Herbaceous wetland plant resources have been widely cultivated and utilized by Indigenous peoples throughout North America since at least the early Holocene. Archaeologists and ethnographers, along with traditional knowledge holders, have documented and reconstructed deep histories of interaction between human communities and coastal plants that provide dietary carbohydrates, medicinal compounds, and craft-fiber. On the Florida peninsula, as elsewhere, paleoethnobotanical researchers face challenging preservation conditions and, despite the ubiquity and vastness of coastal wetlands, the resident flora are conspicuously underrepresented in the archaeological record. In this study, we work toward the recognition of wetland plant use on the Gulf Coast of Florida by integrating analyses of archaeo-molluscan, microfaunal, and palynological assemblages from stratified shell-midden deposits at a village and civic-ceremonial center occupied across the first millennium AD. We identify four particular herbaceous wetland plants as likely subsistence, medicinal, and technological resources. In a brief discussion, we propose that coastal wetland flora likely played key roles within late-Holocene maritime resource intensification, civic-ceremonial aggregation, and village-coalescence.

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