Dataset Information

From Shell Midden to Midden-Mound: The Geoarchaeology of Mound Key, an Anthropogenic Island in Southwest Florida, USA.

ABSTRACT: Mound Key was once the capital of the Calusa Kingdom, a large Pre-Hispanic polity that controlled much of southern Florida. Mound Key, like other archaeological sites along the southwest Gulf Coast, is a large expanse of shell and other anthropogenic sediments. The challenges that these sites pose are largely due to the size and areal extent of the deposits, some of which begin up to a meter below and exceed nine meters above modern sea levels. Additionally, the complex depositional sequences at these sites present difficulties in determining their chronology. Here, we examine the development of Mound Key as an anthropogenic island through systematic coring of the deposits, excavations, and intensive radiocarbon dating. The resulting data, which include the reversals of radiocarbon dates from cores and dates from mound-top features, lend insight into the temporality of site formation. We use these insights to discuss the nature and scale of human activities that worked to form this large island in the context of its dynamic, environmental setting. We present the case that deposits within Mound Key's central area accumulated through complex processes that represent a diversity of human action including midden accumulation and the redeposition of older sediments as mound fill.

SUBMITTER: Thompson VD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4849735 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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From Shell Midden to Midden-Mound: The Geoarchaeology of Mound Key, an Anthropogenic Island in Southwest Florida, USA.

Thompson Victor D VD Marquardt William H WH Cherkinsky Alexander A Roberts Thompson Amanda D AD Walker Karen J KJ Newsom Lee A LA Savarese Michael M

PloS one 20160428 4

Mound Key was once the capital of the Calusa Kingdom, a large Pre-Hispanic polity that controlled much of southern Florida. Mound Key, like other archaeological sites along the southwest Gulf Coast, is a large expanse of shell and other anthropogenic sediments. The challenges that these sites pose are largely due to the size and areal extent of the deposits, some of which begin up to a meter below and exceed nine meters above modern sea levels. Additionally, the complex depositional sequences at ...[more]

PMID: 27123928

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Project description:During the past decade, over 3000 shell middens or shell matrix deposits have been discovered on the Farasan Islands in the southern Red Sea, dating to the period c. 7,360 to 4,700 years ago. Many of the sites are distributed along a palaeoshoreline which is now 2-3 m above present sea level. Others form clusters with some sites on the shoreline and others located inland over distances of c. 30 m to 1 km. We refer to these inland sites as 'post-shore' sites. Following Meehan, who observed a similar spatial separation in shell deposition in her ethnographic study of Anbarra shellgathering in the Northern Territory of Australia, we hypothesise that the shoreline sites are specialised sites for the processing or immediate consumption of shell food, and the post-shore sites are habitation sites used for a variety of activities. We test this proposition through a systematic analysis of 55 radiocarbon dates and measurement of shell quantities from the excavation of 15 shell matrix sites in a variety of locations including shoreline and post-shore sites. Our results demonstrate large differences in rates of shell accumulation between these two types of sites and selective removal of shoreline sites by changes in sea level. We also discuss the wider implications for understanding the differential preservation and visibility of shell-matrix deposits in coastal settings in other parts of the world extending back into the later Pleistocene in association with periods of lowersea level. Our results highlight the importance of taphonomic factors of post-depositional degradation and destruction, rates of shell accumulation, the influence on site location of factors other than shell food supply, and the relative distance of deposits from their nearest palaeoshorelines as key variables in the interpretation of shell quantities. Failure to take these variables into account when investigating shells and shell-matrix deposits in late Pleistocene and early Holocene contexts is likely to compromise interpretations of the role and significance of shell food in human evolutionary and socio-cultural development.

Dataset Information

From Shell Midden to Midden-Mound: The Geoarchaeology of Mound Key, an Anthropogenic Island in Southwest Florida, USA.

Publications

From Shell Midden to Midden-Mound: The Geoarchaeology of Mound Key, an Anthropogenic Island in Southwest Florida, USA.

Similar Datasets

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