Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Anthropology

Major Professor

Nancy White, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Rochelle Marrinan, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Davide Tanasi, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Robert Tykot, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Diane Wallman, Ph.D.

Keywords

Apalachicola River Valley, Ceramic compositional analysis, Cultural continuity, Fort Walton, Woodland

Abstract

Decades of research on Woodland and Mississippian heartlands in the Midwest and Mid-South have greatly enriched our understanding of these ancient societies. More recent studies increasingly emphasize regional variants, recognizing that various environmental settings and local traditions can produce cultural patterns distinct from those of major centers. The Pierce Mounds Complex offers a valuable case for exploring these regional dynamics through an approximately 2,000-year occupational history in an estuarine setting in northwest Florida.

Located at the mouth of Apalachicola River, Pierce is a Woodland and Mississippian center characterized by thirteen burial and platform mounds, extensive shell middens, and associated habitation areas. This dissertation reexamines and clarifies previous research at Pierce, incorporating new data generated through stratigraphic studies, ceramic compositional analysis, radiocarbon dating, and subsistence analysis. It reconstructs and refines the long occupational history of Pierce, tracing the patterns of cultural change and regional interaction over nearly two millennia in the Apalachicola River Valley.

Results indicate that mound construction at Pierce began in the Early Woodland period (ca. 500 B.C.) and intensified during the Middle Woodland period, when large burial mounds containing elaborate and exotic grave goods emerged. Although mound construction largely ceased in the research region during the Late Woodland period, minor activity persisted at Pierce. Around A.D. 1000, a regional Mississippian variant known as Fort Walton culture appeared. Increased domestic and ceremonial occupations occurred at Pierce. People selectively adopted Mississippian elements such as platform mounds and ceramic vessel forms, while maintaining longstanding local traditions including a strong reliance on aquatic resources and the continued use of non-shell tempers in ceramic production. After A.D. 1300, evidence suggests that greater intra- and inter-regional interactions characterize the Late Fort Walton period. Ultimately, Pierce was abandoned by approximately A.D. 1500. This study elucidates the chronology of a major center in the Apalachicola Valley region and demonstrates how a relatively enclosed river-valley landscape could shape locally grounded patterns of cultural development beyond models centered on agricultural intensification and direct external influence.

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