The Early Holocene archaeology of Florida: geospatial approaches to understanding Bolen mobility

ABSTRACT

Three of the most influential archaeological models in the southeastern US have argued that early foragers organized their lifeways via seasonal movement along major drainage basins; around access to raw material sources, crossing drainage basins; or around group foraging needs, following central place foraging models. We examine the distribution of Early Holocene Bolen sites in Florida in light of these models by combining Florida Master Site File data with avocational collection data and conducting spatial analyses. It is not clear to what extent the models are applicable to this low-relief area with comparatively ubiquitous toolstone, little data on seasonality, and rivers that likely were not flowing. Our analyses suggest that Bolen site distribution is highly patterned, with a few extremely large sites clustered around water sources and numerous single artifact finds in more remote areas. Our interpretation is that Bolen represents a population increase coincident with greater surface water availability that facilitated regular aggregations. The spacing of large sites indicates to us local-group territories, each of which had toolstone resources and reliable water. North Florida may present a more general organizing principle that applies throughout the Southeast: water, seasonal variation, and toolstone availability.

KEYWORDS:

• Bolen
• Early Holocene
• social organization
• Florida
• submerged landscapes
• Early Archaic

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Chip Birdsong of the FMSF for compiling all the raw site location data and Shawn Joy for the excellent work on sea level rise. We are especially grateful to Shane Miller and Ashley Smallwood for the opportunity to participate in both the SEAC session and this volume. Thanks to all the people who allowed Thulman to scan their collections. Thank you to Christopher Lydick for managing and sharing quarry cluster shapefiles. Last, we thank very much David Anderson, Randy Daniel, Glen Hanson, and Kandace Hollenbach for creating these pioneering works that provide us with defined ways forward in understanding Florida’s Early Holocene people.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

As archaeological site locations are protected data, the data used to generate the conclusions for this article are available from the authors or from the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research upon request.

Notes on the contributors

Jessi J. Halligan is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Florida State University. Her research focuses upon the geoarchaeology of inundated terrestrial sites, including environmental reconstructions and site-formation processes related to sea-level rise. This research is especially focused upon understanding terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological sites.

David K. Thulman is an assistant professorial lecturer in the anthropology department at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and president of the Archaeological Research Cooperative, Inc. His research interests include using geometric morphometrics and Bayesian radiocarbon chronologies to explore Paleoindian and Early Archaic social organization.

Adam Burke is a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology and in the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on geochemical characterization of Florida toolstones, Paleoindian mobility and subsistence strategies, and economic approaches to the archaeology of hunter-gatherers.

Morgan Smith is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga and a board member of the Archaeological Research Cooperative, Inc. His research focuses on the peopling of the Americas, geoarchaeology, archaeological and geophysical studies of submerged landscapes, and hunter-gatherer studies.