Browsing by Author "Reitz, Elizabeth Jean, 1946-"
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Item Mission and Pueblo Santa Catalina de Guale, St. Catherines Island, Georgia (USA) : a comparative zooarchaeological analysis. (Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 91)(New York : American Museum of Natural History., 2010) Reitz, Elizabeth Jean, 1946-; Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet.; Weinand, Daniel C.; Duncan, Gwyneth A.; Thomas, David Hurst.This volume considers the zooarchaeological evidence for animal use by Spaniards and the Guale people during the First Spanish period (a.d. 1565-1763) on St. Catherines Island, Georgia (USA). The focus is on a combined archaeofaunal assemblage containing 70,324 specimens and the remains of an estimated 510 vertebrate individuals associated with Mission Santa Catalina de Guale. This Spanish mission operated on the island from the 1580s until 1680 in a province known as Spanish Florida. Spanish Florida formerly encompassed portions of the present-day states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, and was the first sustained European colonial enterprise north of Mexico. For many years the rich Spanish heritage of the southeastern United States was neglected as a field of study. Spanish colonists themselves often characterized Spanish Florida as a place of poverty, neglect, and ruin. Over the last 30 years, however, archaeologists have demonstrated that this concept of the colony cannot be accurate. Instead of a poverty-stricken Spanish outpost dependent upon imported goods and institutions, archaeologists find that a complex, multiethnic community existed; one in which pre-Hispanic and Spanish traditions merged to form a new relationship with the cultural and natural environments. The study of animal remains from towns and Roman Catholic missions in Spanish Florida highlights the dynamic interchange between natives and immigrants that resulted in new subsistence patterns blending native and immigrant foodways while taking advantage of the local resource base. Instead of a single, inept, transient Spanish government dominating an invisible or resistant native population, we must now think of Spanish Florida as a place where resilient Native Americans developed new patterns of animal use while influencing the diet and exploitation strategies of immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Africa. TABLE OF CONTENTS: The setting -- The cultural geography of Santa Catalina de Guale / David Hurst Thomas -- Pre-Hispanic subsistence patterns in the southern Georgia Bight -- First Spanish period vertebrate use in St. Augustine and in Apalachee and Timucua provinces -- First Spanish period vertebrate use at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale -- Variability in first Spanish period animal use within Pueblo Santa Catalina de Guale -- An interpretation of Guale hunting strategy based on white-tailed deer increment structures -- Diet, exploitation strategies, and economic contributions in Spanish colonial settings -- Appendix A. Zooarchaeological methods and materials -- Appendix B. The natural history of the southern Georgia Bight and the Carolina Province -- Appendix C. Species lists for the cocina (structure 2), garden/well (structure 2/4), and the friary (structure 4) at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale -- Appendix D. Vertebrate fauna from the auger survey and miscellaneous context assemblages -- Appendix E. Assessing density-mediated attrition in white-tailed deer remains -- Appendix F. Measurements from Convento de San Francisco, Mission Santa Catalina de Guale, Pueblo Santa Catalina de Guale (south and north), and Santa Catalina de Guale auger survey and miscellaneous contexts.Item Native American landscapes of St. Catherines Island, Georgia. (Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 88)(2008) Thomas, David Hurst.; Andrus, C. Fred T.; Bishop, Gale A.; Blair, Elliot, 1981-; Blanton, Dennis B.; Crowe, Douglas E. (Douglas Edward); DePratter, Chester B.; Dukes, Joel.; Francis, Peter, Jr.; Guerrero, Debra.; Hayes, Royce H.; Kick, Maureen.; Larsen, Clark Spencer.; Licate, Camille.; Linsley, David M.; May, J. Alan.; McNeil, Jessica.; O'Brien, Deborah Mayer.; Paulk, Greg.; Pendleton, Lorann S. A.; Reitz, Elizabeth Jean, 1946-; Rollins, Harold B., 1939-; Russo, Michael, 1953-; Sanger, Matthew C., 1976-; Saunders, Rebecca, 1955-; Semon, Anna.Four deceptively simple questions have guided our long-term research into the aboriginal lifeways of St. Catherines Island: 1. How and why did the human landscape (settlement patterns and land use) change through time? 2. To what extent were subsistence and settlement patterns shaped by human population increase, intensification, and competition for resources? 3. What factors can account for the emergence of social inequality in Georgia's Sea Islands? 4. Can systematically collected archaeological evidence resolve the conflicting ethno-historic interpretations of the aboriginal Georgia coast (the so-called 'Guale problem')? Over a span of four decades, the American Museum of Natural History has addressed these four fundamental questions using a broad array of field and analytical techniques. We conducted a 20 percent probabilistic transect survey of St. Catherines Island, walking and probing for buried sites across a series of 31 east-west transects, each 100 m wide. During this initial survey we located 122 archaeological sites, which we tested with more than 400 one-meter by one-meter units. Because the transect sampling was heavily biased toward sites with marine shell, we also conducted a systematic shovel testing program. We also augmented these systematic surveys with a direct shoreline reconnaissance (mostly following the late Holocene surfaces), recording roughly 84 additional shoreline sites on St. Catherines Island. By plotting the distribution of these known-age sites across the Holocene beach ridges, we have developed a detailed sequence documenting the progradation and erosion of beach ridge complexes adjacent to tidal estuaries and oceanward shorelines on the island. To evaluate the results of the 1000+ test explorations and excavations on St. Catherines Island, we have processed 251 radiocarbon determinations, including two dozen dates on 'modern' mollusks (known-age specimens collected prior to atomic bomb contamination) to compute a 'reservoir' correction factor specific to the estuaries around St. Catherines Island (of [Delta]R = -134 [+ or -] 26). The results have been compiled into a dataset of 239 radiocarbon determinations for samples from St. Catherines Island. One hundred and ten of these dates (from 31 distinct mortuary and midden sites) could be directly associated with datable ceramic assemblages, which were classified according to Chester DePratter's (1979, 1991) Northern Georgia Coast chronology .By comparing the results of typological classification with the radiocarbon evidence currently available from St. Catherines Island, we propose a slightly modified ceramic chronology for St. Catherines Island. We analyzed the seasonal growth increments in modern hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria) for a 9-year interval (beginning in 1975). Mercenaria suitable for seasonal analysis were recovered from nearly 85 percent (110 of 130) of the sites identified and sampled in the island wide survey. We analyzed about 2000 individual hard clam shells recovered from these shell middens and, of these, 1771 individual specimens (or fragments) provided usable growth increment estimates, enabling us to address seasonal patterns during the 5000 years of human history. This study is reinforced by an oxygen isotope study of modern and ancient clams from St. Catherines Island. This transect survey produced an extensive and diverse set of vertebrate faunal remains collected systematically from archaeological sites tested across the entire island. Elizabeth Reitz and her colleagues analyzed this vertebrate faunal assemblage, which contains at least 586 individuals represented by 14,970 vertebrate specimens weighing 21,615 g. These materials provide a solid basis for refining hypotheses not only for St. Catherines Island, but for most coastal locations. With the exception of the first and last occupations (the St. Simons and Altamaha periods), the samples suggest a stable pattern of resource use through time, with little variation through time or across space (although the small sample sizes for each time period and circumscribed geographical setting might constrain this interpretation). She also notes the presence of numerous seasonal indicators in the vertebrate zoo archaeological samples recovered from archaeological sites on St. Catherines Island--including unshed deer antlers, juvenile deer dentition, and shark and sea catfish remains. But we also recognized the importance of examining diverse sources of seasonal information in our attempt to flesh out overall patterns of site utilization. We also include analysis of the vertebrate zooarchaeological assemblages from Meeting House Field and Fallen Tree, two additional sites intensively investigated by the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Georgia. The intensive program of mortuary archaeology has recovered the remains of more than 725 individuals from 18 archaeological sites on St. Catherines Island. More than 90 percent of these remains were analyzed by Clark Spencer Larsen and his colleagues, using a variety of microscopic, biomechanical, and stable isotopic techniques. In this monograph, we address the archaeology of St. Catherines Island using the broad- based theoretical approach known as optimal foraging theory, which is grounded in the more general paradigm of human behavioral ecology (that studies human behavior by applying the principles of natural selection within an ecological context). The broad rubric of 'optimal foraging theory' encompasses a broad range of specific models, each of which employs a unique set of simplifying assumptions and constraints, and each can be used to derive testable hypotheses about foraging behavior under certain environmental circumstances. Each model is a formal, mathematical construct and they share the key assumption that during 'economic' pursuits, the forager will operate to maximize the overall rate of energetic return. Specifically, we have employed three basic models to address the archaeology of St. Catherines Island. The diet-breadth (or prey choice) model addresses the issue of which foods should an efficient forager harvest from all those available on St. Catherines Island. Diet-breadth models predict that foragers will optimize the time spent capturing prey, and employ the simplifying assumptions that all resources are randomly distributed (without patches) and that 'capture/handling' and 'search' times represent the sum total of all time spent foraging. We also apply the patch choice model, which, combined with the central limit theorem, predicts that foraging effort will correlate directly with efficiency rank order, meaning that foragers should spend more time working the higher-ranked patches and less time in patches with lower energetic potential. Finally, we likewise employ the central place foraging model to investigate the time/energy spent processing resources at temporary camps before transport to a residential base. We find central place foraging theory to be useful for addressing the role and location of the residential base as a locus for provisioning offspring and mates or potential mates. This monograph also reports the results of optimal foraging experiments conducted over a 2-year period on St. Catherines Island, specifically addressing procurement and return rates for key marine and terrestrial resources that would have been available to aboriginal foragers on St. Catherines Island.Item Seasonality and human mobility along the Georgia Bight : proceedings of the Fifth Caldwell Conference, St. Catherines Island, Georgia, May 14-16, 2010. (Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 97)(American Museum of Natural History., 2012-03-06) Reitz, Elizabeth Jean, 1946-; Quitmyer, Irvy R.; Thomas, David Hurst.; Andrus, C. Fred T., 1967-; Bergh, Sarah G.; Cannarozzi, Nicole R.; Carroll, Gwendolyn Denise.; Colaninno, Carol E.; Culleton, Brendan.; DePratter, Chester B.; Hollenbach, Kandace D.; Jones, Douglas S.; Keene, Deborah Ann.; Kennett, Douglas J.; Lambert, Charles W.; Moak, J. W.; Saul, Bruce M.; Scarry, C. Margaret.; Waselkov, Gregory A.; Wing, Elizabeth S.; American Museum of Natural History.; Saint Catherines Island Foundation.; Caldwell Conference (5th : 2010 : Saint Catherines Island, Ga.)Some of the most enduring and fundamental questions in archaeology relate to site seasonality. During which seasons did people occupy coastal archaeological sites? Why is "seasonality" important to our understanding of human behavior? What does this knowledge tell us about life in dynamic estuarine systems? What methods and technologies are available to address key issues of seasonality? Archaeological seasonality is uniquely linked to settlement patterns, resource availability, environmental relationships, anthropogenesis, landscapes, and social complexity. Archaeologists working in coastal settings typically recover multiple biological proxies that are well suited to explicating questions of human seasonal behavior. The Fifth Caldwell Conference was convened to discuss and report on practiced methods for reading the seasonality record found in common biological proxies. These researchers spoke of how they are applying various methods grounded in the natural sciences to estimate seasonality with particular reference to the archaeology of St. Catherines Island and the Georgia Bight. These methods include stable isotope analysis, ¹⁴C dating, longitudinal studies of animals (molluscs and fishes), zooarchaeology, and archaeobotany. The research shows that all plant and animal remains found in a midden contain a record of human behavior. The authors of these 13 chapters agree that multiple indicators of site seasonality provide the most robust picture of the annual settlement cycle. These papers were initially presented at the Fifth Caldwell Conference, cosponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and the St. Catherines Island Foundation, held on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, May 14-16, 2010. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Seasonality and mobility on the Georgia Bight : why should we care? / David Hurst Thomas -- A Bayesian chronological framework for determining site seasonality and contemporaneity / Douglas J. Kennett and Brendan J. Culleton -- Interpreting seasonality from modern and archaeological fishes on the Georgia coast / Elizabeth J. Reitz, Bruce M. Saul, J.W. Moak, Gwendolyn D. Carroll, and Charles W. Lambert -- Evaluating [delta]¹⁸O profiles of hardhead catfish and Atlantic croaker otoliths as a method of determining seasonal use of fishes / Carol E. Colaninno -- Late prehistoric settlement patterns : zooarchaeological evidence from Back Creek Village, St. Catherines Island / Sarah G. Bergh -- Molluscs as oxygen-isotope season-of-capture proxies in southeastern United States archaeology / C. Fred T. Andrus -- Annual incremental shell growth patterns in hard clams (Mercenaria spp.) from St. Catherines Island, Georgia : a record of seasonal and anthropogenic impact on zooarchaeological resources / Irvy R. Quitmyer and Douglas S. Jones -- Validation of annual shell increments and shifting population dynamics in modern and zooarchaeological hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria) from the Litchfield Beach region, South Carolina / Douglas S. Jones, Irvy R. Quitmyer, and Chester B. DePratter -- Reevaluating the use of impressed odostome (Boonea impressa) as a season of capture indicator for oysters / Deborah Ann Keene -- Estimating the season of harvest of the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) from the St. Catherines Shell Ring / Nicole R. Cannarozzi -- What can plants and plant data tell us about seasonality? / C. Margaret Scarry and Kandace D. Hollenbach -- Making a case for coastal subsistence seasonality / Gregory A. Waselkov -- Discussion / Elizabeth S. Wing.