Zooarchaeology Ongoing Research
Research projects develop both from the focus of the in-house program and from cooperation with outside agencies such as other universities, the National Park Service, National Geographic Society, and many other state, national, and international institutions. We welcome the opportunity to work on faunal samples within our region of expertise. The data derived from such work always adds another facet to the insight we gain into some aspect of human existence. How valuable each facet is depends on the adequacy of the sample size, whether the samples were recovered by sieving the excavated material through appropriately sized screens, and whether all of the animal remains were saved. Additional information that adds great value is interpretation of the context in which the remains are found, the time period in prehistory that they represent, and whether study of the soils and the plant remains are a part of the research plans. |
Seasonal indicators for hunting, fishing, and gathering activities at sites
An important aspect of subsistence systems is scheduling of activities. Berries are picked when they are ripe and sea turtles are caught when they come up on the beaches to lay eggs. Furthermore, people may move from one set of resources to another, living along the coast when fishes are spawning and later moving inland to hunt deer. To chart such movements or seasonal rounds, it is necessary to determine the season of death of the food animals. This is done by measuring bones or shells of short-lived species and examining incremental growth structures of those
animals that grow by adding bone or shell to the edges of their elements. We must also understand the seasonal associations of other species with the targeted species. If for some reason the remains of an expected food species are absent from a site, knowledge of the natural histories of other associated or commensal animals present in the site may still aid in reconstruction of subsistence patterns.
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| This research is now being done in a study of animal remains from archaic shell rings in northeast Florida dating to almost 4,000 years before the present. This project is part of the program called America's First Coast, directed by Michael Russo and Rebecca Saunders and funded by the National Geographic Society. The search for seasonal indicators through measurements and inferences drawn from the life histories of the species in the deposits is being done by Irvy Quitmyer. Anthony Reppas is also working on the animal remains from one of the shell rings for his honors thesis. This research adds data to the growing body of information about what animals were caught or gathered and when during the year different sets of these resources were exploited. |
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Prehistoric human-environment relationships in subtropical, coastal southwest Florida
Prehistoric, subtropical, coastal southwest Florida, including the regions of Charlotte Harbor, Pine Island Sound, Estera Bay, and the Ten Thousand Islands, was populated by fisher-hunter-gatherers. These ancient people are a focus of the FLMNH's South Florida Archaeology Program. They developed into a politically and socially complex society and by the sixteenth century were known as the "Calusa". Increasingly, climatic, geomorphological, and archaeological evidence indicate that their coastal environment fluctuated at temporal and spatial scales that impacted settlement and subsistence strategies. Today, the coastal landscape is dotted with the remains of their villages -- archaeological sites containing animal and plant remains and in some cases, sediment deposits sandwiched between middens. The calcium-carbonate matrix of shell middens and, where they occur, the anaerobic nature of waterlogged middens provide good preservation conditions for both biological and cultural materials.
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| Now going on twenty-two years under the general direction of William Marquardt, the southwest Florida research continues to incorporate strong components of environmental archaeology. Currently, Karen Walker and William Marquardt continue work on a book reporting the results of major excavations at the Pineland Site complex, bringing together the work of multiple authors. Included are: a study of 1,900-year-old waterlogged squash, papaya, and chili seeds leading to a proposal of "homegardens" by Lee Newsom and Margie Scarry; determination of year-round coastal settlement by Irvy Quitmyer who uses a variety of molluscan and finfish remains; a study by Sylvia Scudder of both human-influenced soils and geomorphic deposits to identify a beach ridge augmented by people; and analyses of faunal remains by Susan deFrance and Karen Walker that suggest a variety of depositional conditions, collecting behavior, and environmental change through time. Also in collaboration with the South Florida Archaeology Program is a project by Karen Walker and Donna Ruhl: a regional paleoenvironmental study based on cultural and ethnobiological samples from coastal shell middens and interior black-earth middens within the Everglades National Park |
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The historic period and the balance between the use of wild animals and introduced European domestic ones
A long-term research project is the study of the integration of traditional native American procurements systems with introduced European domestic animals and animal husbandry practices. A number of Masters theses, Ph.D. dissertations, books, and journal articles have addressed these issues. They have examined the question of the increasing use of European animal husbandry in various settings, for example sixteenth century Spanish in St. Augustine, Florida (Reitz 1979, University of Florida Dissertation; and Reitz and Scarry 1985, Reconstructing historic subsistence with an example from sixteenth-
century Spanish Florida . Special Publication No. 3, Society for Historic Archaeology), the early Spanish town of Puerto Real in Hispaniola, West Indies (McEwan 1983, University of Florida Masters thesis), and Spanish colonial settlements in south central Andes (deFrance 1993, University of Florida Dissertation). These different examples show evidence for the retention of native American food ways under some circumstances, flourishing stocks of cattle and pigs in the New World setting, and failure of some domesticates such as sheep and goats to thrive during early colonial conditions. A current project which will add information to our understanding of European colonization is the analysis of animal remains from a nineteenth century sugar plantation in Puerto Rico. The material was excavated by Carlos Solis; Irvy Quitmyer with the help of Kateesha McConnell is conducting the faunal study.
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Animals from prehistoric sites in the West Indies
Colonization of the West Indies occurred in several waves: first people with Archaic culture colonized western Cuba from Middle America; then Archaic and Ceramic Age people migrated from northeastern South America up the Lesser Antillean island chain, ultimately colonizing the entire West Indies and Bahamas. Finally, Europeans explored and dominated the entire region. Studies of the use of plant and animal resources by Ceramic age people is the topic of ongoing research. Data come from the ABC islands off the coast of Venezuela; the Lesser Antilles including Grenada, Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, St. Eustatius, St. Martin, and Saba; the Greater Antilles including Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Jamaica; the Virgin Islands; and the Bahamas including the Turks and Caicos, Samana Cay, Crooked Island, and San Salvador. Data from these sites show evidence for overexploitation of resources, particularly fish and shellfish. The evidence is the decrease in the sizes of territorial reef fishes, a decline in the relative abundance of predatory fishes high in the food chain (e.g., grouper and snapper), and a relative increase in the abundance of herbivorous fishes such as parrotfishes and surgeonfishes. Similar changes are seen in reef fish populations that are intensively fished today. In the face of declining reef fish populations, decrease in the sizes of some marine snails, and decrease in the land crab populations people apparently did not intensify the use of captive and domestic animals for food. Rather people turned to other fishery resources such as tuna fishes. The study of the uses of native animals as food is only part of the picture of a past economy. We can also document the introduction of captive and domestic animals. In addition, we must consider the collection of wild plant foods and the cultivation of crops and fruit trees. Lee Newsom studied native American use of plants in prehistoric West Indies (1993 University of Florida Dissertation). Lee Newsom and Elizabeth Wing are integrating the data with information on the plant and animal uses in the West Indies. This also relates to research being conducted by Charles Woods on the biogeography of the West Indies.
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Paleoindian and Archaic period uses of animals on the coast of Peru
People occupying the coast of southern Peru 10,700 years before the present hunted shore birds and some fishes such as anchovies. These data suggest a coastal migration of people from Asia. This work is being conducted by Susan deFrance and is reported in a recent article in the journal Science (Volume 281, pages 1833-1835). Related to this study is research by Elizabeth Reitz on the fish remains from a series of Archaic sites along the Peruvian coast indicating environmental changes during the early occupation. She identified fishes typically found in warmer water much further south than their present distribution.
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