The late Pleistocene-early Holocene landscape hosted more species and greater numbers of them in the Southeast compared to any other region in North America at that time. Yet James Dunbar posits that a misguided reliance on using Old World origins to validate New World evidence has stalled research in this area. Rejecting the one-size-fits-all approach to Pleistocene archaeological sites, Dunbar analyzes five areas of contextual data—stratigraphy; chronology; paleoclimate; the combined consideration of habitat, resource availability, and subsistence; and artifacts and technology—to resolve unanswered questions surrounding the Paleoindian occupation of the Americas. Through his extensive research, Dunbar demonstrates a masterful understanding of the lifeways of the region’s people and the animals they hunted, showing that the geography and diversity of food sources was unique to that period. He suggests that the most important archaeological and paleontological resources in the Americas still remain undiscovered in Florida’s karst river basins. Building a case for the wealth of information yet to be unearthed, he provides a fresh perspective on the distant past and an original way of thinking about early life on the land mass we call Florida. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

For more than 130 years, research aimed at understanding Paleoindian occupation of the coastal Southeast has progressed at a glacial pace. In this volume, James Dunbar suggests that the most important archaeological and paleontological resources in the Americas still remain undiscovered in Florida's karst river basins.

Bringing together major archaeological research projects from Virginia to Alabama, this volume explores the rich prehistory of the Southeastern Coastal Plain. Contributors consider how the region's warm weather, abundant water, and geography have long been optimal for the habitation of people beginning 50,000 years ago. They highlight demographic changes and cultural connections across this wide span of time and space.New data are provided here for many sites, including evidence for human settlement before the Clovis period at the famous Topper site in South Carolina. Contributors track the progression of sea level rise that gradually submerged shorelines and landscapes, and they discuss the possibility of a comet collision that triggered the Younger Dryas cold reversion and contributed to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna like mastodons and mammoths. Essays also examine the various stone materials used by prehistoric foragers, the location of chert quarries, and the details stone tools reveal about social interaction and mobility.This volume synthesizes more than fifty years of research and addresses many of today's controversial questions in the archaeology of the early Southeast, such as the sudden demise of the Clovis technoculture and the recognition of the mysterious "Middle Paleoindian" period.Contributors: Robert J. Austin | Mark J. Brooks | Christopher R. Moore | I Randolph Daniel | Joseph E. Wilkinson | Joseph Schuldenrein | Allen West | David K. Thulman | James K. Feathers | Terry E. Barbour II | Douglas Sain | Thomas A. Jennings | Albert C. Goodyear | Andrew H. Ivester | Malcolm A. LeCompte | Adam M. Burke | James S. Dunbar | Jon Endonino | Richard Estabrook | H. Blaine Ensor | Victor Adedeji | Douglas J. Kennett | Ashley M. Smallwood | Kara Bridgman Sweeney | Sam Upchurch | James P. Kennett | Wendy S. Wolbach | M. Scott Harris | Ted Bunch | David G. Anderson | C. Andrew Hemmings | James. M. Adovasio

Bringing together major archaeological research projects from Virginia to Alabama, this volume explores the rich prehistory of the Southeastern Coastal Plain. Contributors consider how the region’s warm weather, abundant water, and geography have long been optimal for the habitation of people beginning 50,000 years ago. They highlight demographic changes and cultural connections across this wide span of time and space. New data are provided here for many sites, including evidence for human settlement before the Clovis period at the famous Topper site in South Carolina. Contributors track the progression of sea level rise that gradually submerged shorelines and landscapes, and they discuss the possibility of a comet collision that triggered the Younger Dryas cold reversion and contributed to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna like mastodons and mammoths. Essays also examine the various stone materials used by prehistoric foragers, the location of chert quarries, and the details stone tools reveal about social interaction and mobility. This volume synthesizes more than fifty years of research and addresses many of today’s controversial questions in the archaeology of the early Southeast, such as the sudden demise of the Clovis technoculture and the recognition of the mysterious "Middle Paleoindian" period. Contributors: Robert J. Austin | Mark J. Brooks |Christopher R. Moore | I. Randolph Daniel, Jr. | Joseph E. Wilkinson | Joseph Schuldenrein | Allen West | David K. Thulman | James K. Feathers | Terry E. Barbour II | Douglas Sain | Thomas A. Jennings | Albert C. Goodyear | Andrew H. Ivester | Dr. Malcolm A. LeCompte | Adam M. Burke | James S. Dunbar | Jon Endonino | Richard Estabrook | H. Blaine Ensor | A. Victor Adedeji | Douglas J. Kennett | Ashley M. Smallwood | Kara Bridgman Sweeney | Sam Upchurch | James P. Kennett | Wendy S. Wolbach | M. Scott Harris | Ted Bunch | David G. Anderson | C. Andrew Hemmings | James. M. Adovasio | Dr. Frank J. Vento | Dr. Anthony J. Vega

"A long-needed comparison between Spanish and Spanish colonial sites, showing how both inform us about Spanish identity at home and abroad."--Charles R. Ewen, coeditor of Pieces of Eight: More Archaeology of Piracy "The first systematic attempt to consider the eighteenth-century archaeological record in Spain and measure it against the decades-long research in St. Augustine. It is long overdue and valuable."--Russell K. Skowronek, coauthor of Ceramic Production in Early Hispanic California: Craft, Economy, and Trade on the Frontier of New Spain Examining ceramics from eighteenth-century household sites in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, and St. Augustine, Florida, Setting the Table opens up new interpretations of cultural exchange, change, and identity in the early modern Spanish empire. This trans-Atlantic perspective sheds light on the largely underrepresented connections between the Spanish Empire and its Atlantic territories as well as the ways that Spanish and Spanish American culture came together to create something new and distinct. To analyze and compare tableware from these far-removed locations, Kathryn Ness proposes and employs a new vessel-based classification system to bridge the differences between existing systems. Her findings show that on both sides of the Atlantic, similar major changes to dining practices and foodways developed at almost the same time. Ness argues that the people of Spain and the Spanish Americas influenced each other, reinterpreting and incorporating new ideas that reflected traditional Spanish culture while also assimilating French fashions, such as matching ceramics, and British items, such as tea. They were creating and expressing a distinct Spanish Atlantic identity that retained some traditions from the home country while welcoming new ideas from an increasingly global network. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

"A significant empirical contribution to the transdisciplinary study of eighteenthcentury Atlantic history and the colonial history of the Christian Church."--Dan Hicks, author of The Garden of the World: An Historical Archaeology of Sugar Landscapes in the Eastern Caribbean "Thoughtfully applies practice theory to the concept of Quakerism as a religion, while simultaneously examining how Quaker practices shaped the lives not only of practitioners but those they enslaved."--James A. Delle, author of The Colonial Caribbean: Landscapes of Power in the Plantation System "A nuanced look at Quakerism and its relationship with slavery."--Patricia M. Samford, author of Subfloor Pits and the Archaeology of Slavery in Colonial Virginia Inspired by the Quaker ideals of simplicity, equality, and peace, a group of white planters formed a community in the British Virgin Islands during the eighteenth century. Yet they lived in a slave society, and nearly all their members held enslaved people. In this book, John Chenoweth examines how the community navigated the contradictions of Quakerism and plantation ownership. Using archaeological and archival information, Chenoweth reveals how a web of connections led to the community's establishment, how Quaker religious practices intersected with other aspects of daily life in the Caribbean, and how these practices were altered to fit a slavery-based economy and society. He also examines how dissent and schism eventually brought about the end of the community after just one generation. This is a fascinating study of the ways religious ideals can be interpreted in everyday practice to adapt to different local contexts. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Fourteen in-depth case studies incorporate empirical data with theoretical concepts such as ritual, aggregation, and place-making, highlighting the variability and common themes in the relationships between people, landscapes, and the built environment that characterize this period of North American native life in the Southeast.

Preceramic Mesoamerica delivers cutting-edge research on the Mesoamerican Paleoindian and Archaic periods. The chapters address a series of fundamental questions in American archaeology including the peopling of the Americas, human adaptations to late glacial landscapes, the Neolithic transition, and the origins of sedentism and early village life. This volume presents innovative and previously unpublished research on the Paleoindian and Archaic periods and evaluates current models in light of new findings. Examples include breakthroughs in dating Mesoamerica’s earliest sites and their implications for models of hemispheric colonization; the transition to postglacial patterns of settlement and subsistence; divergent pathways to initial sedentism; the possibility of Archaic-period monumentality; changing patterns of interregional exchange and interaction; and debates surrounding the origins of agriculture, ceramics, and full-time village life. The volume provides a new perspective on the Mesoamerican Preceramic for students and scholars in archaeology, anthropology, and history. Readers will come to understand how the Preceramic contributed to the emergence of the cultural traditions that anthropologists recognize as Mesoamerica.

The southeastern United States has one of the richest records of early human settlement of any area of North America. This book provides the first state-by-state summary of Paleoindian and Early Archaic research from the region, together with an appraisal of models developed to interpret the data. It summarizes what we know of the peoples who lived in the Southeast more than 8,000 years ago—when giant ice sheets covered the northern part of the continent, and such mammals as elephants, saber-toothed tigers, and ground sloths roamed the landscape. Extensively illustrated, this benchmark collection of essays on the state of Paleoindian and Early Archaic research in the Southeast will guide future studies on the subject of the region's first inhabitants for years to come. Divided in three parts, the volume includes: Part I: Modeling Paleoindian and Early Archaic Lifeways in the Southeast Environmental and Chronological Considerations, David G. Anderson, Lisa D. O'Steen, and Kenneth E. Sassaman Modeling Paleoindian and Early Archaic Settlement in the Southeast: A Historical Perspective, David G. Anderson and Kenneth E. Sassaman Models of Paleoindian and Early Archaic Settlement in the Lower Southeast, David G. Anderson Early Archaic Settlement in the South Carolina Coastal Plain, Kenneth E. Sassaman Raw Material Availability and Early Archaic Settlement in the Southeast, I. Randolph Daniel Jr. Paleoindian and Early Archaic Settlement along the Oconee Drainage, Lisa D. O'Steen Haw River Revisited: Implications for Modeling Terminal Late Glacial and Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems in the Southeast, John S. Cable Early Archiac Settlement and Technology: Lessons from Tellico, Larry R. Kimball Paleoindians Near the Edge: A Virginia Perspective, Michael F. Johnson Part II: The Regional Record The Need for a Regional Perspective, Kenneth E. Sassaman and David G. Anderson Paleoindian and Early Archaic Research in the South Carolina Area, David G. Anderson and Kenneth E. Sassaman The Taylor Site: An Early Occupation in Central South Carolina, James L. Michie Paleoindian and Early Archaic Research in Tennessee, John B. Boster and Mark R. Norton A Synopsis of Paleoindian and Early Archaic Research in Alabama, Eugene M. Futato Statified Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Deposits at Dust Cave, Northwestern Alabama, Boyce N. Driskell Bone and Ivory Tools from Submerged Paleoindian Sites in Florida, James S. Dunbar and S. David Webb Paleoindian and Early Archaic Data from Mississippi, Samuel O. McGahey Early and Middle Paleoindian Sites in the Northeastern Arkansas Region, J. Christopher Gillam Part III: Commentary A Framework for the Paleoindian/Early Archaic Transition, Joel Gunn Modeling Communities and Other Thankless Tasks, Dena F. Dincauze An Arkansas View, Dan F. Morse Comments, Henry T. Wright

“Fitts combines archaeology and ethnohistory to explore Catawba strategies for retaining sovereignty and power in the colonial era. A model of interdisciplinary methodology, this book offers new insights into coalescence, colonialism, and Indigenous persistence.”—Christina Snyder, author of Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America “Skillfully mobilizes a rich array of historical and archaeological evidence to recover from obscurity the decisive role that Catawba women played in guiding their society through highly precarious times.”—Daniel H. Usner Jr., author of Indian Work: Language and Livelihood in Native American History “A fascinating glimpse of the Catawba Nation during this critical period. Fitts succeeds in tracing the mechanics of individual decisions that laid the groundwork for collective change.”—William L. Ramsey, author of The Yamasee War: A Study of Culture, Economy, and Conflict in the Colonial South The Catawba Nat ion played an important role in the early colonial Southeast, serving as a military ally of the British and a haven for refugees from other native groups, yet it has largely been overlooked by scholars and the public. Fit for War explains how the Nation maintained its sovereignty while continuing to reside in its precolonial homeland near present-day Charlotte, North Carolina. Drawing from colonial archives and new archaeological data, Mary Elizabeth Fitts shows that militarization helped the Catawba maintain political autonomy but forced them to consolidate their settlements and—with settler encroachment and a regional drought—led to a food crisis. Focusing on craft and foodways, Fitts uncovers the dynamic interactions between mid-eighteenth-century Catawba communities, as well as how Catawba women worked to feed the Nation, a story missing from colonial records. Her research highlights the double-edged nature of tactics available to American Indian groups seeking to keep their independence in the face of colonization. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series