University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2016 New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century Protohistoric Period in East Tennessee: Redefining the eriodP through Glass Trade Bead and Ceramic Analyses Jessica Nicole Dalton-Carriger University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Dalton-Carriger, Jessica Nicole, "New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century Protohistoric Period in East Tennessee: Redefining the eriodP through Glass Trade Bead and Ceramic Analyses. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2016. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3905 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 Jessica Nicole Dalton-Carriger entitled "New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century Protohistoric Period in East Tennessee: Redefining the Period through Glass Trade Bead and Ceramic Analyses." 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. Lynne P. Sullivan, David G. Anderson, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Gerald F. Schroedl, Chad Black 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.) New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century Protohistoric Period in East Tennessee: Redefining the Period through Glass Trade Bead and Ceramic Analyses A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee Jessica Nicole Dalton-Carriger August 2016 Acknowledgments This project actually began for me while I was researching my Master’s thesis in 2009. At the time I was looking at the Upper Hampton Farm site (40RH41), which contained a number of glass beads used in this dissertation. At the behest of Gerald Schroedl I contacted Elliot Blair at UC Berkeley and began a nearly six-year long conversation about glass trade beads. Over the course of these years many people have been there to help me develop my research that I would like to thank. First, I would like to thank my committee Lynne Sullivan, David Anderson, Gerald Schroedl, and Chad Black for help during my research process. I would also like to thank Elliot Blair. Six years ago when we first started this project I had no clue what I was doing or where this project would go. Along the way you have answered my questions, helped me with testing, and proven time and again to be a great research partner. You have my eternal gratitude for all that you have done. Second, I would like to thank all of the institutions and people who provided glass beads to analyze. Including the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, Marvin Smith at Valdosta State University, Mark Williams at the University of Georgia, Kathryn Sampeck at Illinois State University, Martha Zierden at the Charleston Museum, Nick Honerkamp at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Anne Rogers at Western Carolina University, Jay Franklin at East Tennessee State University, R.P. Stephen Davis and Brett Riggs at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chris Rodning at Tulane University, and David Moore at Warren Wilson College. I would also like to thank Jan Simek for use of the University of Tennessee ii Department of Anthropology Portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) machine, Sierra Bow for teaching me how to use the machine as well as answering all of my annoying questions about pXRF. Thad Bissett deserves thanks for all the help with the GIS maps. I would also like to thank the Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology (TCPA) for providing me with funds to conduct my research and to Laure Dussubieux at the Chicago Field Museum for running all of my Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) samples. Third, I would like to thank the many people who have helped me along the way at UT. First I would like to thank everyone at the McClung Museum. The McClung has been my home at UT since I first began graduate school. I have not only done all of my research there but I have worked there for many years and everyone there has become part of my UT family. Additionally, as everyone who has ever gone to graduate school can attest you cannot survive it without your graduate school friends. There are far too many to list here but I would like to thank all of the friends that I have made in the graduate program over these many years. You all are what made graduate school survivable and I will never forget all of our Halloween Parties. Lastly, I would like to thank my family. To my husband Steven, I love you with all my heart. It has been a long road towards my PhD, one that you have walked with me in pursuit of your own degree and thank you so much for being with me. To my parents Gary and Vickie Dalton, I know you thought this day would never come and at times it seemed like I would be in school forever, but I would like to thank you for helping me get here, encouraging me to pursue my education, and giving me a stubborn backbone that helped me push through. iii Abstract The Protohistoric period in East Tennessee is poorly understood in the archaeological record and is defined as the intermediate period between the Late Mississippian and Historic periods in the seventeenth century. Earlier research focused on depopulation, population replacement, and the rise of Overhill Cherokee settlements in the eighteenth century, with little attention to the transitional Protohistoric period. The goal of this dissertation is to examine new fields of evidence and employ new dating methods in order to fully understand the Protohistoric period in East Tennessee This dissertation does this in three ways. It explores three hypotheses concerning the habitation of East Tennessee, using extant archaeological collections and new theoretical models to redefine habitation patterns during the Protohistoric period. Second, using both pXRF and LA- ICP-MS analyses on European glass trade beads it creates a chronological sequence of chemical patterns corresponding to Native American habitation. Finally, it uses temporally sensitive ceramic rim metrics at the microseriation level to develop a transitional Protohistoric potting tradition exists between Prehistoric Mississippian and Historic Cherokee ceramics in East Tennessee. This dissertation uses glass bead and ceramic collections from the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture and other comparative collections to show a continuous occupation of the East Tennessee Valley from the Prehistoric period into the seventeenth century. The data from the glass bead analysis shows continued habitation and stresses the importance of Native American middlemen in intercontinental trade. Instead of showing a clear transition from one tradition to the next, the ceramic data reveals an amalgamation of potting traditions incorporating iv both Prehistoric and Historic Native American traits. This mingling of traits suggests that the Prehistoric peoples of East Tennessee were not replaced by migrating Cherokee populations, but were instead a coalescent society formed during the Protohistoric period that helped to reshape the cultural and political landscape of East Tennessee. v Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .........................................................................................................1 1.1 Issues with Southeastern Research ......................................................................1 Temporal Periods ...........................................................................................2 1.2 Hypotheses ...........................................................................................................2 1.3 Chapter Organization ...........................................................................................3 Chapter 2: Early Contact (Fifteenth & Sixteenth Centuries) .................................................6 2.1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................6 2.2 The European Discovery of American (Fifteenth Century) ................................6 2.3 The Contact Period (Sixteenth Century) ..............................................................9 2.4 Sixteenth Century Spanish Interests in North America .......................................11 La Florida ......................................................................................................12 Spanish in the Interior Southeast ..................................................................15 De Soto ..........................................................................................................15 De Luna ..........................................................................................................16 Pardo .............................................................................................................17