| NSF Org: |
BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | October 27, 2020 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 27, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 2040074 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
John Yellen
jyellen@nsf.gov (703)292-8759 BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | November 15, 2020 |
| End Date: | April 30, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $30,195.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $30,195.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1523 UNION RD RM 207 GAINESVILLE FL US 32611-1941 (352)392-3516 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
FL US 32611-2002 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Archaeology DDRI |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the factors underlying long term social change. It will use geochemical, petrographic, and other technical data derived from pottery along the northern Gulf Coast of Florida to examine social changes associated with the abandonment of large size settlements in which people lived. Judging from the diversity of settlement and pottery technology that followed, social outcomes varied. The objective of this research is to determine the extent to which these changes involved social movements. Social movements in the modern world are often the impetus for transformative social change, including those which are often called "collapse." However recent scholarship on societal collapse has illuminated how social groups in fact can enact structural change through deliberate collective action, a curative to the bias that collapse was necessarily a matter of failure or "devolution" of society. In its emphasis on materiality and the material conditions of human experience, study of the past holds good potential for contributing to the cross-cultural study of social movements well beyond the reach of ethnography, sociology, and literary history.
Pottery from 12 sites across the study area will provide data on clay provenance (neutron activation analysis), composition (petrography), manufacture and use (technofunctional analysis), and surface treatment (stylistic analysis) as analytical proxies for social identity and affiliation. Pottery from sites spanning the period of abandonment and resettlement varies wildly with respect to surface treatment and vessel form, Provenance and compositional data may be equally variable, but this is not yet known. Compositional data embody choices for clays and aplastic additives that carry the weight of tradition inconspicuously, and are thus possibly indicative of shared practices that took form over generations of co-residency of potters at civic-ceremonial centers and then continued into the ensuing centuries of dispersed settlement. As the samples for this project are drawn from sites on public lands that are vulnerable to the negative effects of rising seas, this research will contribute to federal mandates for the inventory, assessment, and conservation of archaeological sites. Furthermore, this research will: (1) contribute to ongoing archaeological critique of popular "collapse" narratives and the development of alternatives based on empirical studies; (2) add information concerning a period of time that is poorly understood in the area and throughout the southeastern United States; and (3) provide case material to the growing body of studies on the archaeological signatures and material implications of social movements.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Throughout histories worldwide, centuries-long periods of cultural elaboration are regularly interspersed by episodes of apparent devolution, when the structures and practices of social complexity give way to diverse and seemingly disintegrated social formations. Sweeping changes in settlement, ritual, daily practice, and material culture are typically construed by archaeologists as period or phase transitions and interpreted for the public as waves of fluorescence and collapse. From an ethnographic vantage point such changes often result from purposeful social action, notably social movements aimed at changing the status quo. The goal of this research was to evaluate the potential role of social movements in a social transformation that occurred on Florida’s northern Gulf Coast around A.D. 650. This region-wide transformation entailed the abandonment of Hopewell-influenced Middle Woodland civic-ceremonial centers, followed by dispersed, small-scale settlement, and significant changes in mortuary ritual, daily practices, and material culture. This research turned attention away from the “collapse” of civic-ceremonial centers and the activities that animated them and towards the social movements that repurposed tradition as innovation for alternative futures.
Historically, collective action such as social movements have been most successful and lasting when the participants are linked through shared social identities (categorical identities) and strong social networks (relational connections). This research established categorical identities and relational connections of Middle and Late Woodland period communities of the Lower Suwannee area primarily through variations in the design, technology, and provenance of pottery. Specifically, Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) was used in conjunction with petrographic and technofunctional analyses of cooking and serving vessels from nonmortuary ritual and residential contexts within two well studied Middle Woodland (ca. A.D. 200–700) civic-ceremonial centers (Garden Patch [8DI4] and Shell Mound[8LV42]) and nine diverse Late Woodland (ca. A.D. 700–1000) period sites throughout the Lower Suwannee. Results of these analyses indicated that diverse practices and categorical identities in the Lower Suwannee during the Late Woodland period were influenced by the interplay of various social movements in an area that was routinely on the fringes of traditions originating from the northern interior and east.
This research contributes to the development of archaeological measures of culture change in the pre-Columbian past through the lens of social movements and their effects, and the data sets generated by this project provide quantitative means for evaluating archaeological signatures of social movements. This research also contributes to interpretations of the Late Woodland period in Florida, an understudied topic that is glossed as a period of devolution. Furthermore, this research is relevant to the study of pre-Columbian societies more broadly by addressing patterns of culture change and practice that are not easily reconciled with traditional social evolutionary models (i.e., downsizing, dispersing, etc.).
This project also contributes to the broader goals of the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey (LSAS) in the Anthropology Department at the University of Florida by documenting the distribution, timing, and content of archaeological sites in the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Key National Wildlife Refuges, and thus contributes to federal mandates for the inventory, assessment, and conservation of archaeological sites on public lands. The analysis of social movements is also particularly relevant today in considering the variables related to the success of such endeavors, as well as the potential transformative effects that social movements can have across community, political, and environmental dimensions. Data compiled and as part of this investigation are curated by the Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology and are continually being disseminated through publications, public lectures, and the lab website (https://lsa.anthro.ufl.edu/).
Last Modified: 05/23/2022
Modified by: Jessica A Jenkins
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