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North Gulf Coastal Archaeology of the Here and Now
Asa Randall, Paulette S McFadden, Kenneth Sassaman, Andrea Palmiotto
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History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Alice Ivas, Michael P Fedoroff
This chapter is an historical overview of the settlement and colonization of the present day Mississippi Gulf Coast. The chapter was written for cultural resource and historic preservation reports. It has been used in: “History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast” in Negative Findings of Phase I Investigations for a High Pressure Water Line, NASA Stennis Space Center, Hancock County, Mississippi by Michael P. Fedoroff. Report submitted to Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi, 2013. “History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast” in Phase I Cultural Resource Survey for the Popp’s Ferry Extension Harrison County, Mississippi by Fedoroff, Michael P. et al. Report submitted to Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi, 2012.
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2000Fisherfolk, Farmers, and Frenchmen: Archaeological Explorations on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, J. H. Blitz and C. B. Mann ,with contributions by J. A. Giliberti, J. D. Jewell, and C. M. Scarry. Archaeological Report No. 30, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.
John Blitz
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The Petite Anse Project, Archaeological Investigations along the West-central Coast of Louisiana 1978–1979
Ian Brown
2015
Avery Island is known far and wide for its natural beauty. Live oaks bearing festoons of Spanish moss, fields plush with red hot peppers, snowy egrets building nesting beside the ponds, and alligators peering slyly above the murky waters are but a few of the elements that make this island a virtual Eden. However, it was the presence of an active saline that made Avery Island attractive to both historic and prehistoric populations. Indians made good use of the Salt Mine Valley site for making salt in late prehistoric times, and even earlier Indians used the island to erect earthen edifices, such as the Banana Bayou Mound. In the Petite Anse Project Ian Brown begins with a thorough discussion of the archaeology of Avery Island and then heads out to the other salt domes and surrounding marsh in exploring the rich culture history of the coastal plain. Three parishes receive major treatment in this volume and well over a hundred sites are explored. The degradation brought about by hurricanes and industry has changed forever the west-central coast of Louisiana. Because many of the sites visited and described by the author have sadly disappeared, this work is an important time capsule for those interested in Louisiana’s past.
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Keeping Pace with Rising Sea: The First Six Years of the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey, Gulf Coastal Florida
Jessica Jenkins, Cristina I Oliveira, Paulette S McFadden, Joshua Goodwin, Ginessa J Mahar, Anthony Boucher, Neill Wallis, Kenneth Sassaman
Low-gradient coastlines are susceptible to inundation by rising water, but they also promote marsh aggradation that has the potential to keep pace with sea-level rise. Synergies among hydrodynamics, coastal geomorphology, and marsh ecology preclude a simple linear relationship between higher water and shoreline transgression. As an archive of human use of low-gradient coastlines, archaeological data introduce additional mitigating factors, such as landscape alteration, resource extraction, and the cultural value of place. The Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey (LSAS) is an ongoing effort to document the history of coastal dwelling since the mid-Holocene, when the rate and magnitude of sea-level rise diminished and the northern Gulf coast of Florida transitioned into an aggradational regime. Results of the first six years of the LSAS suggest that multicentury periods of relative stability were punctuated by site abandonment and relocation. Subsistence economies involving the exploitation of oyster and fish, however, were largely unaffected as communities redistributed themselves with changes in shoreline position and estuarine ecology. After A.D. 200, civic-ceremonial centers were established at several locations along the northern Gulf coast, fixing in place not only the infrastructure of daily living (villages), but also that of religious practice, notably cemeteries and ceremonial mounds. Intensified use of coastal resources at this time can be traced to a ritual economy involving large gatherings of people, terraforming, feasting, and the circulation of socially-valued goods. To the extent that religious practices buffered the risks of coastal living, large civic-ceremonial centers, like aggrading marshes, afforded opportunities to “outpace” sea-level rise. On the other hand, centers introduced a permanence to coastal land-use that proved unsustainable in the long term.
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Archaeological Investigations at Bird Island (8DI52), Dixie County, Florida
Paulette S McFadden
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Underwater Archaeological Investigations: Ship Island Pass, Gulfport Harbor, Mississippi. Phase 2
Jack Irion
An archaeological Phase II assessment of five magnetic anomalies has been completed as part of a planned deepening and widening of the Gulfport Harbor channel by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District. A documentary research program was also implemented in various federal archives in order to expand the list of potential shipwreck sites in the Gulfport area. This document presents the results of the remote sensing and diving investigation of the five anomalies and a compilation of information on eight additional shipwreck sites in the Gulfport area. Neither the documentary research nor the physical examination of magnetic targets yielded evidence of significant historic or prehistoric cultural resources in the project area. No further work is recommended.
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Talking smack: The archaeology and history of pensacola's red snapper fishing industry
Nicole Grinnan
2014
Though human populations living along northwest Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast have long utilized locally abundant marine resources, the formation of a red snapper fishing industry in Pensacola, Florida, brought marine resource exploitation in the region to an unprecedented level in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with other industries, commercial red snapper fishing in Pensacola underwent significant growth during this period and helped shape the port city's new importance as a cosmopolitan, southern economic center. Utilizing a historical ecological approach, this thesis provides a multidisciplinary analysis of commercial fishing culture, commercial fishing vessels, and the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery to explore the dynamic relationship the industry held with the local environment. Additionally, archaeological and historical evidence provides the basis for a model describing the structural and material characteristics of potential Pensacola commercial red snapper fishing shipwrecks in the region.
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Wakes Across the Gulf: Historic Sea Lanes and Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico
Jack Irion
BOEM Technical report 2021-057, 2021
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Alexander, Tchefuncte, and Black Sand: An Early Gulf Tradition in the Mississippi Valley.
David H. Dye
In The Tchula Period in the Mid-South and Lower Mississippi Valley: Proceedings of the 1982 Mid-South Archaeological Conference, edited by David H. Dye and Ronald C. Brister. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archaeological Report 17:28-39. , 1986
In this paper we discuss new data pertinent to the Alexander culture. In particular, recent radiocarbon determinations place the Alexander culture between 600 and 200/100 B.C. and lithic analysis suggests that these folk maintained a lithic bifacial reduction strategy that continued from earlier Late Archaic Benton times. Alexander ceramic motifs may have been part of a widespread ceramic horizon that existed throughout much of the Mississippi Valley and adjacent Gulf Coastal Plain.
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