THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2022 AT 7 PM – 8 PM
Localized Histories of Calusa Ecology and Economy, Southwestern Florida, AD 1000 — 1500
Dr. Isabelle Holland-Lulewicz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Climate Science, Penn State University
Humans experience climate effects on scales that directly affect the availability of key subsistence resources, such as the location and abundance of fish populations. This is especially true for those populations that reside near and depend upon estuarine ecosystems where sea level change and/or changes in salinity can act as primary driving forces in the distribution and configuration of these ecosystems. The research presented here explores the local manifestations of global climate trends related to the Little Ice Age from AD 1000 — 1500 within two distinct estuarine systems in Florida, Charlotte Harbor/Pine Island Sound/San Carlos Bay and Estero Bay in Southwest Florida. It also combines this with an examination of the consequences of environmental change on economic strategies that in turn influence Indigenous sociopolitical and socioeconomic organization among the Calusa. This research utilizes high-resolution Bayesian chronological modeling, oxygen isotope geochemistry of incremental marine shell growth bands, and zooarchaeological analysis of vertebrate and invertebrate refuse at Mound Key (8LL2) and the Pineland Site Complex (8LL33, etc.), to examine local environmental conditions and evidence for deeply rooted ecological knowledge that supported complex socio-economic organization. Lastly, this presentation will examine evidence of a unique assemblage of burrfish remains recovered from archaeological deposits at Mound Key.
Dr. Isabelle Holland-Lulewicz is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Climate Science at Penn State University. She is the director for the Socio-Ecological Histories of Estuarine Landscapes (SHEL) Lab with her primary research program focusing on human-environment dynamics in the US Southeast by way of paleoenvironmental reconstruction via zooarchaeological analyses of vertebrates and invertebrates, stable isotope analysis of marine shell, and chronological modeling of anthropogenic exploitations of estuarine environments.
To participate in the lecture, please register at https://tinyurl.com/y9nbuztd. Attendees will not be admitted to the Zoom lecture without registering first. Thank you.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022 AT 7 PM – 8 PM
Hunter-Gatherer Settlement and Subsistence at Letchworth Mounds (8JE337)
Martin Menz, M.A., Doctoral Candidate, University of Michigan
The Letchworth site (8JE337) near Tallahassee is one of the largest Woodland period ceremonial centers in Florida. The site includes a 15-meter tall platform mound and several other low mounds, as well as a habitation area roughly 500-meters across. Despite its great size, Letchworth has received relatively little attention from archaeologists, in part due to the site’s low artifact density and poor preservation. In this presentation, I discuss the results from recent excavations in Letchworth’s habitation area, including evidence for domestic architecture and subsistence practices. I conclude by comparing the occupation at Letchworth with other hunter-gatherer ceremonial centers throughout the Eastern Woodlands.
Martin Menz is a University of Michigan graduate student studying domestic life at hunter-gatherer ceremonial centers during the Woodland period. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of South Florida and has worked at numerous sites throughout Florida and Georgia, including Crystal River, Kolomoki, and now Letchworth Mounds.
To participate in the lecture, please register at (LINK COMING SOON) Attendees will not be admitted to the Zoom lecture without registering first. Thank you.
This Season's Previous Lectures
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 (WATCH THE PRESENTATION)
The Archaeology of Colonialism at Fort Mose: Forging Freedom Through Practice
Lori Lee, PhD, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Flagler College
Fort Mose was the first legally sanctioned free black community in North America. The Spanish governor of Florida guaranteed the legal freedom of self-emancipated Africans and African Americans if they converted to Catholicism, built and occupied a fort on the frontier of St. Augustine, and fought against Spanish enemies.
These soldiers created a multicultural community of African, African American, and indigenous families. This paper analyzes archaeological evidence and historical documents to investigate the daily practices people used to enact their freedoms in a location and time where those freedoms were contested.
Dr. Lori Lee is Kenan Distinguished Associate Professor of Anthropology at Flagler College. Her research examines the materiality of migration, health practices, and identity among African Diaspora populations.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2022 (WATCH THE PRESENTATION)
Fire and Water: Pre-Columbian landscape management in the Southwestern Amazon
Dr. Neil Duncan, Associate Professor, University of Central Florida
Recent investigations reveal that peoples of the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia utilized hydrological engineering in the seasonally flooded savanna to modify the landscape for farming, fishing, and hunting. For thousands of years, people significantly transformed the landscape through raised fields, fish weirs, and inhabited forest islands that spread across some 100,000 km2 rivalling in scale and scope to contemporary Andean civilizations such as Chavín, Moche, Tiwanaku, and Inka. This presentation will explore the paleoethnobotanical (pollen, phytoliths, and diatoms) results of sediment coring in wetlands adjacent to these earthworks that document their early construction. In addition, we will explore recent findings about foodways from ceramics residues of foods from inhabited forest islands.
Dr. Neil Duncan is an associate professor at the University of Central Florida and directs the Paleoethnobotanical and Environmental Archaeology Laboratory. Dr. Duncan studies the interrelationships of food, culture, and environment in the past. His current work focuses on the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia and Cape Canaveral, Florida, but has worked in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, and China.