The Brickhill Bluff Site, Cumberland Island, Georgia
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MODELING VARIABILITY IN PRE-COLUMBIAN WOODLAND HABITATION AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION: THE BRICKHILL BLUFF SITE, CUMBERLAND ISLAND, GEORGIA by Stephen Andrew Wise A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL August 2017 Copyright by Stephen Andrew Wise 2017 ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor Dr. Arlene Fradkin for her continued encouragement and patience. This work would not have been possible without her persistence and guidance. I am especially indebted to Dr. Mike Russo, Archaeologist for the National Park Service, for his reassurance and help. I also would like to thank Valentina Martinez who taught me how to excavate features and the proper way to hold a trowel. Her comments and suggestions were invaluable to the organization and construction of this thesis. Thank you for being supportive of my goals. I am grateful to everyone whom I have had the pleasure to work with on this and other related projects. Whether in the field or in the lab, the members of my excavation team and the many supportive voices at Florida Atlantic University and the National Park Service have contributed to my growth as an archeologist and as a person. I would especially like to thank Dr. David Morgan, Dr. Michael Harris, Richard Vernon, Hank Kratt, Charlie Sproul, and John Cornelison who have guided my academics and career. They have served as mentors and shown me how to be a professional archaeologist and friend. I am thankful for our shared love of the past, people and culture. They have taught me more than I could ever give them credit for here. My family has been an important part of this project. My mother encouraged me and provided financial and emotional support. Her love and guidance are the reason I am free to pursue my interest in archaeology. My father’s good humor and his reminders not to take life too seriously shaped who I am and helped ground me during the most difficult iv times. And finally, I would like to thank my wife, Brittany. Her support and reassurance guided this research, my presentations, and finally this thesis. She is the person I turn to during times of joy and times of sorrow. Thank you for reading and editing countless drafts and for your love. I look forward to telling our twins how their mother read each chapter between bouts of morning sickness. Finally, I would like to acknowledge our unborn twins. If you ever read this, remember that you can accomplish those things you think you cannot do. v ABSTRACT Author: Stephen Andrew Wise Title: Modeling Variability in Pre-Columbian Woodland Habitation and Social Organization: The Brickhill Bluff Site, Cumberland Island, Georgia. Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Arlene Fradkin Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2017 This thesis examines Woodland settlement patterns at the Brickhill Bluff site on Cumberland Island, Georgia. Aspects of Woodland habitation and social organization are not well understood along the Georgia coast. Using shell and artifact distribution data from excavations at Brickhill Bluff, this thesis attempts to discern how Woodland populations, specifically Deptford and St. Johns cultures, utilized the site between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1000. This study also examines the efficacy of the midden typology already established for the South Atlantic Coastal Plain by statistically comparing the artifact assemblage from Brickhill Bluff to samples from sites used to develop this midden typology. The aims of this research are to identify past cultural activities at Brickhill Bluff - specifically seasonal oyster collecting, general hunting and gathering strategies, and residential density. These criteria are compared with an established matrix designed to discern how past groups utilized southeastern coastal shell midden sites. vi This thesis confirms that Brickhill Bluff most closely resembles oystering station sites with short durations of limited occupations. Brickhill Bluff, like other oystering stations sites, contained no evidence of structural features and very little evidence of domestic activities. However, because of the variability among archaeological sites and the different degrees of artifact preservation, it is essential that this midden typology is used cautiously. This thesis demonstrates that the identification of features provides the biggest clues to site function and formation and should be used in tandem with the benchmarks spelled out in the established midden typology to identify Woodland middens. vii MODELING VARIABILITY IN PRE-COLUMBIAN WOODLAND HABITATION AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION: THE BRICKHILL BLUFF SITE, CUMBERLAND ISLAND, GEORGIA List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………..x List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………..…xi Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 Problem Orientation………………………………………………...………...…...1 Theoretical Orientation……………………………………………………..…..…6 Objective and Organization of Thesis…………………………………………..…7 Chapter 2: Environmental Setting and Cultural History…………………………..…..…10 Environmental Setting………………………………………………………...…10 Cultural Overview…………………………………………………………..……16 Chapter 3: Previous Archaeology…………………………………………………….….29 History of Previous Archaeology on Cumberland Island………………………..29 History of Previous Archaeology at Brickhill Bluff……………………………..33 Chapter 4: Methodology…………………………………………………………...…….36 Phase I……………………………………………………………………………36 Phase II……...…………………………………………………………………....37 Laboratory Procedures, Analysis and Curation………………………………….38 Chapter 5: Brickhill Bluff Material Culture Results and Analysis……………………....42 Datable Evidence…......…………………....………………………………….....42 Prehistoric and Protohistoric Artifacts…………………………………………...43 viii Historic Artifact………………………………………………………………….48 Chapter 6: Description of Woodland Assemblages at Comparative Sites……………….51 Multi Family Residential Base…..……….………………………………………………53 Bass Pond Dam (38CH124)………………………………………………...…53 Stafford North (9CM10)………………………………………………………..55 Table Point (9CM12)…………………………………………………………...56 Single Family Shell Midden……………………………………………………..58 Minim Island (38GE46)……………………………………………………..…58 38BU2…………………………………………………………………………….61 Single Family Limited Shell Midden…………………………………………….64 30CH779………………………………………………………………………....64 Fish Haul (38BU805)…………………………………………………………..65 Oystering Station………………………………………………………………...67 38BU833…………………………………………………………………………67 38BU2…………………………………………………………………………….68 Chapter 7: Comparative Sites and Middle Typology Model…………………………….70 References…………………………………………………………………………….….86 ix FIGURES Figure 1. Location of the Brickhill Bluff site on Cumberland Island, Georgia. ................. 2 Figure 2. Evidence of erosion at Brickhill Bluff............................................................... 15 Figure 3. Table Point Excavation showing ring and house site in the upper right. .......... 31 Figure 4. Brickhill Bluff. Station 2, established by Robert Wilson and David Brewer in 1987……………………………………………………….…………...……34 Figure 5. Shell midden eroding from Brickhill Bluff. ...................................................... 37 Figure 6. Screening soil from an excavation unit. ............................................................ 39 Figure 7. Shell Tools……………………………………………………………………..47 x TABLES Table 1. Expectation for Various Site Types…………….………………………………..4 Table 2. Native American pottery………………………………………………………..43 Table 3. Sites sampled……………………………………………………………...……52 Table 4. Relative Frequency of Artifacts from Sampled Sites……………………..……74 Table 5. Comparative Frequencies of fauna, oyster shell, and minority shell found at the sampled sites ..……………………………………………………………..75 Table 6. Diversity of artifact types in each site sampled………………………………...76 Table 7. The Presence or Absence of Structural Features and Human Remains………...77 Table 8. Artifact visibility ranked low, medium, and high………………………………78 xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Problem Orientation Woodland period habitation and social organization are not well understood along the Georgia coast. While shell midden sites in the region have yielded important information (Caldwell 1952:315–16; DePratter 1991:122–56; Espenshade 1993; Espenshade and Brockington 1989; Espenshade et al. 1994; Jefferies 1994; Milanich 1971; Trinkley 1990, 1991; Trinkley and Adams 1994; Waring and Holder 1968), there remains a lack of understanding regarding cultural behaviors as they correlate to Woodland shell midden formation. Archaeologists continue to place these sites under the umbrella term “shell midden.” This classification ignores the variety of characteristics found within and between sites and fails to differentiate divergent social and economic interpretations. A proven typology is needed that recognizes that not all shell middens resulted from the same formation processes. In this thesis, I examine the efficacy of Espenshade’s (Espenshade et al. 1994) midden typology for the South Atlantic Coastal Plain by statistically comparing the artifacts from the Brickhill Bluff site on Cumberland Island, Georgia (Figure 1) with a sample of sites used by Espenshade to develop his four midden categories. Specifically, I analyze the shell and artifact data collected from the Brickhill Bluff site and compare it with the assemblages Espenshade used to create his midden typology. Then I explore how close-interval shell mapping can provide an additional variable to determine site structure. The aims of