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Demonstrating the wide variation among complex hunter-gatherer communities in coastal settings This book explores the forms and trajectories of social complexity among fisher-hunter-gatherers who lived in coastal, estuarine, and riverine settings in precolumbian North America. Through case studies from several different regions and intellectual traditions, the contributors to this volume collectively demonstrate remarkable variation in the circumstances and histories of complex hunter-gatherers in maritime environments.  The volume draws on archaeological research from the North Pacific and Alaska, the Pacific Northwest coast and interior, the California Channel Islands, and the southeastern U.S. and Florida. Contributors trace complex social configurations through monumentality, ceremonialism, territoriality, community organization, and trade and exchange. They show that while factors such as boat travel, patterns of marine and riverine resource availability, and sedentism and village formation are common unifying threads across the continent, these factors manifest in historically contingent ways in different contexts.  Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America offers specific, substantive examples of change and transformation in these communities, emphasizing the wide range of complexity among them. It considers the use of the term complex hunter-gatherer and what these case studies show about the value and limitations of the concept, adding nuance to an ongoing conversation in the field. Contributors: J. Matthew Compton | C. Trevor Duke | Mikael Fauvelle | Caroline Funk | Colin Grier | Ashley Hampton | Bobbi Hornbeck | Christopher S. Jazwa | Tristram R. Kidder | Isabelle H. Lulewicz | Jennifer E. Perry | Christina Perry Sampson | Thomas J. Pluckhahn | Anna Marie Prentiss | Scott D. Sunell | Ariel Taivalkoski | Victor D. Thompson | Alexandra Williams-Larson A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson and Scott M. Fitzpatrick

Integrating geophysical survey with the study of community settlement patterns can be challenging because of cultural and environmental factors including (1) site formation and house preservation, (2) the coordination of domestic tasks at extra-household scales, and (3) the survey environment of the study area. In this article, we present the results of a program of geophysical survey comprising magnetic susceptibility and magnetometry at Weeden Island (8Pi1)—a shell-bearing, wooded site with nearly pure sand soils on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Combining remote sensing techniques mitigated some of the challenges of surveying forested terrain while providing insight into community organization at a site with minimal preserved structural remains. Compared with previous traditional surveys of the area, the geophysical survey extended the recognized boundaries of occupational activity, provided additional definition to the spatial structure of deposits, and allowed us to identify specific domestic features. Excavations at each area of intensive occupation provided evidence about the organization of the domestic economy at the site and showed the potential of this approach to reveal significant patterns of community settlement. La integración de prospecciones geofísicas con la investigación de patrones de asentamientos comunitarios puede ser desafiante por causo de algunos factores culturales y ambientales incluyendo (1) los procesos de formación de sitios y la preservación de restos domésticos, (2) la coordinación de tareas domesticas en escalas supra-domésticas, y (3) el medio ambiente moderno de la región de la investigación. En este trabajo, presentamos los resultados de una programa de prospección geofísica consta de susceptibilidad magnética y magnetomatría en el sitio de Weeden Island (8Pi1), un sitio boscoso y con cantidades de concha en la costa del Golfo de Florida. La combinación de varias técnicas geofísicas mitiga algunas desafíos de la prospección en terrenos boscosos mientras proporciona comprensión de la organización comunitaria de algún sitio sin preservación de restos arquitectónicos. Comparando conLa integración de prospecciones geofísicas con la investigación de patrones de asentamientos comunitarios puede ser desafiante por causo de algunos factores culturales y ambientales incluyendo (1) los procesos de formación de sitios y la preservación de restos domésticos, (2) la coordinación de tareas domesticas en escalas supra-domésticas, y (3) el medio ambiente moderno de la región de la investigación. En este trabajo, presentamos los resultados de una programa de prospección geofísica consta de susceptibilidad magnética y magnetomatría en el sitio de Weeden Island (8Pi1), un sitio boscoso y con cantidades de concha en la costa del Golfo de Florida. La combinación de varias técnicas geofísicas mitiga algunas desafíos de la prospección en terrenos boscosos mientras proporciona comprensión de la organización comunitaria de algún sitio sin preservación de restos arquitectónicos. Comparando con prospecciones tradicionales anteriores del área, la prospección geofísica extendió los límites de las actividades domésticas, proporcionó más definición a los patrones espaciales de los depósitos, y nos permite a identificar rasgos domésticos específicos. Excavaciones en cada área de ocupación intensiva proporcionó evidencia sobre la organización de la economía doméstica en el sitio y mostró la potencial de este método para revelar patrones significativos de asentamientos comunitarios.

Anthropogenic coastal landscapes often incorporate shell, a durable remnant of subsistence activity. Collection, consumption, and even feasting can thus contribute to histories of site formation and mound construction. This research assesses how oyster consumption related to the creation of Mound A, a shell mound at the Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex in Citrus County, Florida, is differentiated from the instances of oyster consumption that resulted in the midden constituting the rest of the island. I compare the size of shell remains from mound and off-mound midden contexts to assess variation in the sizes represented across the samples, stratigraphic variation within each context, and evidence for directional change indicative of over-exploitation. I identify a relationship of dependence between shell size and stratigraphic depth in off-mound samples that does not appear in mound samples, suggesting a relatively short period of time for the accumulation of mound deposit oyster shells. The findings of this study point to mound construction at Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex as a distinct and deliberate activity, with the construction event likely sharing importance with the community aggregation and consumption that facilitated it.

The people who lived by Tampa Bay from AD 1050 onward occupied a place where the interests of multiple groups and emergent polities intersected, sometimes cascading into new opportunities for competition and connection. To the north, Mississippian leaders sought to assert their status through prestigious, symbolic goods crafted of marine materials; to the south, Calusa chiefs were consolidating power through the control of trade networks. These regional influences shaped community organization in the Tampa Bay area during late prehistory. In the Woodland period, Tampa Bay had been on the periphery of the new developments in craft, ceremony, and aggregation known

This research explores how daily practices shape community organization and contribute to regional historical trajectories. I focus on a case study of the pre-Columbian Safety Harbor occupation (ca. AD 1000-1500) of the Weeden Island site, on the west central Gulf coast of Florida. Safety Harbor residents of Weeden Island occupied a coastal locale with access to estuarine resources, in a region neighboring powerful and increasingly complex groups, and within a settlement system and political environment that may have begun to adopt new ideologies and organizing principles. This project was designed to investigate a central research topic: During the Safety Harbor period, a time of regional changes in the settlement system and intensified interactions with powerful neighbors, what local opportunities to collaborate, coordinate labor, or compete for resources or authority emerged from the daily domestic practices at Weeden Island? This case study is situated relative to two broad theoretical realms: the archaeological study of communities and ordinary domestic life, and anthropological approaches to long-term social change, including the development of complexity and inequality in hunter-gatherer societies. In addressing these bodies of literature, I aim to distinguish the local exercise of authority from power and influence at multi-community scales, and to emphasize the place of the local community in investigating broader historical trajectories. The dissertation project focuses on original research at the Weeden Island site. This research included geophysical survey and excavations and the study of resulting materials, including stylistic and formal analysis of artifacts (primarily pottery; shell, bone, and stone tools; and shell and bone ornaments and associated debitage), zooarchaeological identification and analysis, macrobotanical identification, and radiocarbon dates. I argue that while there were abundant opportunities for the local coordination of community labor in subsistence activities, the crafting of tradeable shell ornaments was a likely domain for differentiation at an intrasite level and potentially between residents of the residential community as well. This study also has methodological implications for the combined use of magnetic susceptibility and magnetometer in forested shell-bearing sites. This study highlights that craft production and trade were likely venues for social change in Safety Harbor residential and regional communities. At the local scale, coastal Safety Harbor communities focused on the production of shell beads, and this may also have been an area of experimentation with new divisions of labor, or the development of new ideological or ceremonial concepts. By transitioning from peripheral participants in Weeden Island era ceremonial culture to purveyors of raw and crafted shell goods, Safety Harbor people created a new role for themselves on the regional landscape, with implications for local historical trajectories.

The purpose of this volume is to examine variability, interaction, and historical change among a selection of hunter-gatherer societies that have been recognized for the complexity of their economies, political integration, or social structure. The North American case studies included here share features that have earned them notice for representing levels of aggregation, sedentism, inequality, or coordinated public works that were once unexpected among nonagriculturalists. Instances of complex hunter-gatherers often occur in riverine or marine settings with access to aquatic resources, as do all the examples in this book. As a collection, the case studies in this book prompt questions

Anthropogenic coastal landscapes often incorporate shell, a durable remnant of subsistence activity. Collection, consumption, and even feasting can thus contribute to histories of site formation and mound construction. This research assesses how oyster consumption related to the creation of Mound A, a shell mound at the Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex in Citrus County, Florida, is differentiated from the instances of oyster consumption that resulted in the midden constituting the rest of the island. I compare the size of shell remains from mound and off-mound midden contexts to assess variation in the sizes represented across the samples, stratigraphic variation within each context, and evidence for directional change indicative of over-exploitation. I identify a relationship of dependence between shell size and stratigraphic depth in off-mound samples that does not appear in mound samples, suggesting a relatively short period of time for the accumulation of mound deposit oyster shells. The findings of this study point to mound construction at Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex as a distinct and deliberate activity, with the construction event likely sharing importance with the community aggregation and consumption that facilitated it.