An Archaeology of Woodland Transformation
An Archaeology of Woodland Transformation
Social Movements, Identities, and Pottery Production on the Gulf Coast
Exploring a period of transformative change for the Woodland-era societies of Florida’s Lower Suwannee region
In this book, Jessica Jenkins provides a detailed look at the transition from the Middle to Late Woodland periods in the Lower Suwannee region of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Drawing on ceramic analysis techniques, Jenkins argues that this time of transformative change, often interpreted as a societal collapse, should instead be seen as a purposeful shift brought about by emerging social movements.
Beginning around 650 CE, the region’s Indigenous inhabitants dispersed from civic-ceremonial centers, moved away from places associated with the dead, changed their burial practices, and adopted new pottery surface treatments and designs. Examining ceramic vessels from 12 sites located on islands near the present-day town of Cedar Key, Jenkins catalogs these shifts. Jenkins explores how people shared social identities that connected them through relational networks and laid the foundation for these changes.
An Archaeology of Woodland Transformation is the first book to synthesize information on the villages, networks, and identities of this time and place. Offering rich datasets and new perspectives on sociocultural transformation in and around the lower Suwannee River Estuary, this book represents a breakthrough in current understandings of the Woodland period.
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
“A wonderful, deep historical perspective on village life, the complexities of identity, and critical social change in the American southeast.”—Jake Holland-Lulewicz, Pennsylvania State University
“Jenkins provides a rich historical understanding of Woodland social change in this novel approach to the dynamic archaeology of social movements on the Gulf Coast. Her discovery of important changes in the ways Indigenous societies related to each other and the creation and reuse of their ancestral places will be valuable to southeastern archaeologists for years to come.”—Edward Henry, coeditor of Early and Middle Woodland Landscapes of the Southeast
Jessica A. Jenkins is assistant professor of anthropology at Flagler College.
