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Archaeological Investigations at Salt Springs (8Mr2322), Marion County, Florida

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Archaeological Investigations at Salt Springs (8Mr2322), Marion County, Florida ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT SALT SPRINGS (8MR2322), MARION COUNTY, FLORIDA Jason M. O’Donoughue, Kenneth E. Sassaman, Meggan E. Blessing, Johanna B. Talcott, and Julie C. Byrd Technical Report 11 Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology Department of Anthropology University of Florida USFS Acc# LKGF00436 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT SALT SPRINGS (8MR2322), MARION COUNTY, FLORIDA Jason M. O’Donoughue Kenneth E. Sassaman Meggan E. Blessing Johanna B. Talcott Julie C. Byrd Technical Report 11 Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology Department of Anthropology University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 USFS Acc# LKGF00436 March 2011 © 2011 Department of Anthropology, University of Florida all rights reserved Cover photo of trench excavation in near-shore deposits at Salt Springs (8MR2322), Marion County, Florida, July 2009. ii Management Summary Under 1A-32 permit 0809.110 issued by the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, and through cooperation of the St. Johns Water Management District and generous support of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology (LSA), Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, conducted archaeological investigations in a near-shore portion of site 8MR2322 that was exposed during improvements to Salt Springs Recreation Area. Mitigative excavations by archaeologists of the National Park Service (NPS) met the immediate compliance needs of USFS, but the coffer dam installed to replace the shoreline bulkhead exposed a portion of a near- shore deposit with good stratigraphic integrity and excellent organic preservation. Through consent of all concerned parties, LSA archaeologists excavated an eight-meter- long trench through this deposit to expose cross-sectional profiles and to collect samples for laboratory analysis. Revealed in the trench were three distinct strata, each with age estimates that suggests both progradation and vertical accretion of midden deposits over a period of roughly 6600–5800 years ago. Both the upper shell-bearing strata and underlying sands with anthropogenic materials appear to have been deposited in standing water, with only the upper portion possibly subject to periodic drying from fluctuations in the level of the spring pool. Well preserved wood beneath the deepest anthropogenic deposits suggest that artesian flow of the spring dates back to at least 9000 years ago. Differential drying of the upper shell stratum (post-5900 years ago) may explain the limited preservation of plant remains compared to underlying sands, which were rich in wood debris, hickory nutshell, various seeds, squash parts, and other plant remains. Bone density was actually greater in the shell, but overall the shell-bearing and sand strata yielded very similar vertebrate assemblages. Artifact density was likewise greater in the shell than in the sand, with the vast majority of artifacts consisting of the by-products of biface production in the last unit of deposition. On balance, ~800 years of anthropogenic accumulation in the near-shore waters of the Salt Springs pool reflects a relatively consistent accumulation of the remains of animals and plants together with artifacts of the Middle Archaic Mount Taylor period. The addition of freshwater shellfish after ~6400 years ago represents either a change in subsistence practice or the progradation of shell outward into the water as it accumulated higher on the adjacent land. Given the lack of associated changes in nonshell food remains, the latter scenario seems most likely. Additional, specialized analyses (e.g., stable isotopes, micromorphology of sediment), coupled with integration of the NPS results, will improve the perspective on environmental and cultural change, but for now the best-supported conclusion is that conditions and activities at Salt Springs from ca. 6600-5800 years ago were relatively stable. This preliminary study attests to the analytical quality of the near-shore deposits at Salt Springs and thus the continuing need to preserve their integrity by protecting them from unnecessary human impact. iii Acknowledgments Archaeological excavations at 8MR2322 were conducted under 1A-32 permit 0809.110 issued by Bureau of Archaeological Research (BAR), Division of Historic Resources, Florida Department of State. We thank BAR Archaeologist Louis D. Tesar and State Archaeologist Ryan J. Wheeler for their support of this project. We are also grateful for the cooperation of the St. Johns Water Management District, notably Sandy McGee, Mike Register, and Brian Abrams. Personnel of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) were particularly generous with logistical and technical assistance. USFS Archaeologist Ray Willis lent his expertise and support to every aspect of the field work, as did USFS engineers Kamal Otman and Jerry Boyer. The administrative support of USFS Heritage Program Manager Rhonda L. Kimbrough and Ocala National Forest District Ranger Rick Lint is also greatly appreciated. National Park Service archaeologist Mike Russo alerted us to the opportunity to test at Salt Springs, for which we owe a debt of thanks. Mike also generously provided photographs and information on his own work at the site. The crew at Salt Springs endured difficult conditions and long work days to ensure the success of this project. We are grateful to Asa Randall, Zack Gilmore, Meggan Blessing, Julie Byrd, Alisa French, and Erik Johanson for joining us in some of the most intensive field work we have ever experienced. Our thanks also to Johanna Talcott for traveling to the field site from Penn State to oversee the processing of bulk samples for botanical materials. Julie Byrd of Florida State University not only worked hard in the field but also visited the Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology to examine bone tools from the excavation. Catherine Aust did the heavy lifting of sorting the bulk samples we returned to the lab, and was assisted by students Alisa French, A. J. Gottschalk, Leah Cary, Ed Zegarra, Blake Stinson, Macarena Santos, Sami Kattan, Lauren Andrito, Kirsten Motonari, Sallie Dehler, Kathryn King, Erin Harris-Parks, Matt Marino, Kathryn Cook, Summer Jupin, Elena Thomas, Hayley Singleton, and Anna Binder. Accommodations in the field were provided by our field school hosts, the Juniper Club of Louisville, Kentucky. Administrative staff of the Department of Anthropology, University of Florida ensured smooth operations. We are especially grateful to Office Manager Karen Jones for her fiscal oversight of the project and to Chair Allan Burns for administrative support. Funding for this project was provided by the Hyatt and Cici Brown Endowment for Florida Archaeology. iv Contents Management Summary ...................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Chapter 1. Introduction and Research Orientation ..............................................................1 Chapter 2. Environmental and Archaeological Background .............................................11 Chapter 3. Methods and Results of Field Investigation.....................................................33 Chapter 4. Material Culture ...............................................................................................49 Chapter 5. Zooarchaeological Assemblage........................................................................65 Chapter 6. Paleoethnobotanical Assemblage.....................................................................87 Chapter 7. Conclusions ....................................................................................................105 References Cited ..............................................................................................................115 Appendix A: Catalog ......................................................................................................129 Appendix B: Radiocarbon Data......................................................................................143 v vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH ORIENTATION Kenneth E. Sassaman In July 2009, the Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology (LSA), Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, participated in a collaborative effort to investigate archaeological materials impacted by improvements to the recreational facilities at Salt Springs in Marion County, Florida. Located on the Ocala National Forest, Salt Springs Recreation Area is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Mitigative excavations at an archaeological site (8MR2322) surrounding the spring pool were undertaken in the Spring of 2009 by Michael Russo of the Southeast Archaeological Center, National Park Service (Figure 1-1). That effort was successful in sampling the shoreline deposits impacted directly by facility improvements, but adjacent near-shore deposits—typically submerged in the spring pool—fell outside the area of potential impact and were thus not subject to mitigative excavation. A coffer dam emplaced to install a new bulkhead around the pool exposed these near-shore deposits, revealing as well the vulnerability of this portion of the site to the indirect impacts attending continued public use of the spring. Through cooperation of the USFS and with authorization of the Bureau of Archaeological Research (1A-32 Permit 0809.110) and the St. Johns Water Management District, LSA archaeologists excavated an eight-meter long trench through the
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