Perishable Industries from the Windover Bog: An Unexpected Window into the Florida Archaic

Abstract

Multi-disciplinary excavations at the Windover Bog site (8BR246) in 1986 and 1987 yielded a remarkably well-preserved but very fragile corpus of fiber-based and wood artifacts in direct association with a series of Early Middle Archaic burials. This suite of mid-sixth millennium B.C. materials includes not only the oldest textiles from the American Southeast but also sophisticated basketry, cordage, and wood items previously undocumented (and unanticipated!) at this time horizon in this part of Florida. The textile assemblage includes close-simple and close-diagonal twining, both with S-Twist wefts (paired and trebled); open twining with paired, Z-Twist wefts; and balanced plain weave. Significantly, many of these items are in the form of non-heddle loom-woven cloth. Represented forms include circular or globular bags, hoods, blankets, clothing, and what may be intentionally produced burial shrouds. Also observed are twisted and braided cordage, composite fiber, and fiber and wood construction. The wood assemblage includes a wide array of forms from minimally modified burial "stakes" to complex, extensively worked, "dumbbell"-style mullers. The Windover fiber and wood assemblage is summarized and compared to others in North and South America and the myriad roles of perishable industries are discussed in terms of the lives and deaths of their makers.

Formal analyses and functional accounts of groundstone “plummets” from Poverty Point, Louisiana

“…While textiles are rarely preserved in the archeological record of the Archaic, those that have been recovered suggest a relatively sophisticated loom-based weaving technology (Adovasio et al, 2001;Strickland-Olsen et al, 1999). The earliest evidence of weaving comes from the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri (Kuttruff et al, 1998).…”

Early Holocene morphological variation in hunter-gatherer hands and feet

“…Most individuals were buried within 24 to 48 hours after death (Doran 1992;Dickel 1988, Hauswirth 1991 in a flexed position, on the left side with heads oriented to the west, and pinned by sharpened stakes approximately 1m below the surface of the peat (Hauswirth et al 1994). The nearly neutral pH of the pond (6.1-6.9) created ideal conditions for preservation of both skeletal and soft tissues; allowing researchers to sequence DNA from preserved brain matter (Hauswirth et al 1994), reconstruct diet from preserved stomach contents (Tuross et al 1994), and study textile industries (Adovasio et al 2001). The population exhibited predominantly good health and included individuals of extremely advanced age (50+) for hunter-gatherer groups which reflects local resource abundance (Klingle 2006) and medical practices (Adovasio et al 2009;Hamlin 2001;Smith 2003;Tuross et al 1994;Wentz 2006).…”

“…There were some sex-based trends that are relevant to the current study. First, DJD frequency in the cervical spine is particularly high in females and may be explained by food or palm leaf (for textile fibers) processing activities (Wentz 2010) or carrying heavy loads (Smith 2008) both of which are supported by grave good evidence (Adovasio et al 2001;Adovasio et al 2009;Hamlin 2001). Males exhibit greater DJD in the lumbar region which suggests they were carrying heavy loads (perhaps game or goods during seasonal camp relocation) or stressed from repetitive motions related to hide processing (Wentz 2010).…”

“…We postulated we would find between-sex differences in carpal bones due to increased hand trauma (Wentz 2010) and cervical vertebra DJD in females (possibly linked to food and textile processing activities) (Adovasio et al 2001;Adovasio et al 2009;Wentz 2010) compared to males who had a higher frequency of severe DJD in both hands (18% of the sample) (Smith 2008). The multivariate test conducted on the index variables for the four carpal bones did not result in a significant finding of difference between males and females but, as noted in Results, the test was underpowered and the p-value was only slightly higher than the significance threshold.…”

A North American Perspective: Comment on Jonathan Benjamin's ‘Submerged Prehistoric Landscapes and Underwater Site Discovery: Reevaluating the ‘Danish Model’ for International Practice’

“…Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we would add conservation to Benjamin's final phase. One of the major benefits of submerged landscapes is that they have the potential to contain organic artifacts seldom found on land (Adovasio et al 2001). Once exposed to air, these finds will deteriorate without proper conservation.…”