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From Foraging to Food Production on the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Alabama and Tennessee, U.S.A

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From Foraging to Food Production on the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Alabama and Tennessee, U.S.A University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2014 From Foraging to Food Production on the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Alabama and Tennessee, U.S.A. Stephen Byrnes Carmody University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Carmody, Stephen Byrnes, "From Foraging to Food Production on the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Alabama and Tennessee, U.S.A.. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3189 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Stephen Byrnes Carmody entitled "From Foraging to Food Production on the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Alabama and Tennessee, U.S.A.." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Anthropology. Jan F. Simek, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: David G. Anderson, Kandace D. Hollenbach, Sally P. Horn, Gary D. Crites Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) From Foraging to Food Production on the Southern Cumberland Plateau of Alabama and Tennessee, U.S.A. A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Stephen Byrnes Carmody December 2014 Dedication To Braden and Maddie. ii Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my committee; Jan F. Simek, David G. Anderson, Gary D. Crites, Kandace D. Hollenbach, and Sally P. Horn. Without their thoughtful encouragement, unwavering support, and dedication to my success this day would not have arrived so soon. They were each an incredible role model of success, teacher, and friend, throughout this long journey. I also owe an incredible debt of gratitude to Sarah C. Sherwood. Not only did Sarah provide me with the opportunity to work with her fieldschool but she also allowed me to return year after year. Our discussions in the field and in the laboratory helped form the basis of my dissertation research. She taught me to be a better field archaeologist, researcher, and scholar. Her friendship and encouragement were instrumental to my success. I would also like to thank all of the fieldschool students and volunteers that helped to excavate the Michaels and Uzzelles Shelter. Their hard work in the field made my research possible. Their good-spirit made hours in the field and lab enjoyable. Also, their assistance in snake-wrangling activities helped ensure my survival. I thank the Anthropology faculty at the University of Tennessee who were not officially on my dissertation committee. Their doors were always open for questions and they were certainly helpful throughout the entire process. I want to thank Thad Bissett for his help with statistics, GIS, and all other computer-related problems. And also Sierra Bow who sense of humor and friendship eased the pain of long days in the office and also the field. While there are far too many graduate students to list by name I thank all of you who were supportive and encouraging along the way. iii I could not have even started this journey had it not been for the love and support of my parents, Glyn Ann and Fred Carmody. Your encouragement to begin this process was only exceeded by your support to finish. I could not have done this without you. I love you both and am grateful for all that you have done for me. I also want to thank Laura, Rebecca, Amy, Rick, and James. You have loved and supported me through every decision I have made in life. That support has made the difficult decisions easier and the easy ones more trivial. Last but certainly not least I have to thank my beautiful wife Lydia and my two precious children, Braden and Madeleine. You have tolerated my mess, work-filled nights and weekends, and caffeine-fueled days, never complaining about bags of dirt, piles of books, and stacks of papers. Your patience, understanding, and love kept me focused throughout this journey and made me feel completion was possible when it seemed it was not. While words cannot describe how much I love you I hope to show you each and every day through my actions. iv Abstract Research involving the origin of plant domestication remains as important today as ever. While early anthropologists viewed plant domestication as a necessary precondition for cultural development, more recent ethnographic studies have shown that agriculture was a much more labor intensive subsistence practice than hunting and gathering, leading many to question the reasons behind the prehistoric transition. Today, research and advances in technology have provided conclusive evidence to include the Eastern Woodlands of North America as one of the eight global centers of indigenous plant domestication. Although the timing of domestication and the plants involved in early horticultural systems are well understood, several questions remain unanswered. Today, most models suggest that initial plant domestication occurred either in the heavily populated river valleys, or in the surrounding uplands that were also frequented by prehistoric groups. To test these models, I analyzed plant assemblages from five sites containing Archaic through Woodland period deposits, the time periods preceding, following, and during which initial plant domestication occurred. The sites were selected for their geographic position and proximity to each other. Found within a 20-mile radius of one another, Michaels Shelter and Uzzelles Shelter are located in the uplands of the southern Cumberland Plateau, Widows Creek and Mussel Beach are located in the Tennessee River Valley, and Russell Cave is situated approximately halfway between the upland and river valley sites. My results from analyzing the plant remains from these five sites show that the conditions that favored early plant domestication in floodplain settings across the region were also present in upland settings. These factors include rich soils, highly disturbed landscapes, and v the frequent reoccupation of sites in areas where plant food resources naturally occurred and were encountered on the landscape. All of these factors contributed to initial plant domestication in both the upland and floodplain environments across the Eastern Woodlands. Additionally, through the application of the diet breadth and central place foraging models, I explain how individual decision-making processes in small scale societies, and not geographical location, resulted in the cultivation and domestication of indigenous plants. vi Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: The Origins of Agriculture ............................................................................................ 8 Early Approaches ........................................................................................................................ 8 Newer Archaeology Approaches .............................................................................................. 11 Post-Processual Approaches ..................................................................................................... 16 Evolutionary Approaches .......................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 3: The Physical and Cultural Landscape of the Southern Cumberland Plateau .............. 24 Physiography ............................................................................................................................. 24 Soils of the Cumberland Plateau ............................................................................................... 26 Forests of the Cumberland Plateau............................................................................................ 32 Fauna of the Cumberland Plateau ............................................................................................. 38 Changing Plant and Animal Communities during the Holocene .............................................. 45 Cultural Environment of the Southern Cumberland Plateau ..................................................... 48 The Archaic Period (11,500 – 3,200 cal yr BP) .................................................................... 49 Early Archaic Period (11,500 – 8,900 cal yr BP) .................................................................. 50 Middle Archaic period (8,900 – 5,800 cal yr BP) ................................................................. 52 Late Archaic period (5,800 – 3,800 cal yr BP) ...................................................................... 54 Gulf Formational Stage of the Middle Tennessee Valley ..................................................... 57 Woodland Period (3,200 – 1,020 cal yr BP).........................................................................
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