Asa Randall
I am an anthropological archaeologist focused on Archaic (ca. 10,000-3000 years ago) hunter-gatherers of the Southeastern United States. In particular, I am interested in the material dimensions of community coalescence, dispersion, and ritual integration, and their impact on landscapes.
My geographic focus is the the St. Johns River in Northeast Florida, best known for scores of shell mounds constructed by hunter-gatherers. The goal of my field research is to document the histories of Archaic shell mounds, which range from habitation spaces to monumental shell and earthworks, and to place them in their environmental and social contexts. As part of this research I am engaged in the analysis of objects (stone tools and marine shell in particular), which can reveal the origins and connections of involved communities. I use remote sensing (particularly LiDAR and historic aerial imagery) to locate and, when possible, reconstruct ancient shell mounds and their surrounding environs.
As a consequence of this field and museum-based research, I have become increasingly fascinated in the ways that shell mounds and hunter-gatherers informed the emergence of anthropological thought in the 18th century.
Address: 455 W. Lindsey St., 521 DHT, Norman, OK 73019
My geographic focus is the the St. Johns River in Northeast Florida, best known for scores of shell mounds constructed by hunter-gatherers. The goal of my field research is to document the histories of Archaic shell mounds, which range from habitation spaces to monumental shell and earthworks, and to place them in their environmental and social contexts. As part of this research I am engaged in the analysis of objects (stone tools and marine shell in particular), which can reveal the origins and connections of involved communities. I use remote sensing (particularly LiDAR and historic aerial imagery) to locate and, when possible, reconstruct ancient shell mounds and their surrounding environs.
As a consequence of this field and museum-based research, I have become increasingly fascinated in the ways that shell mounds and hunter-gatherers informed the emergence of anthropological thought in the 18th century.
Address: 455 W. Lindsey St., 521 DHT, Norman, OK 73019
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Books by Asa Randall
Integrating more than 150 years of shell mound investigations, including Ripley Bullen’s crucial work, climatological records, and modern remote sensing data, Randall rejects the long-standing ecological interpretation and redefines these sites as socially significant places that reveal previously unknown complexities about the hunter-gatherer societies of the Mount Taylor period (ca. 7400–4600 cal. B.P.). Affected by climate change and increased scales of social interaction, the region’s inhabitants modified the landscape in surprising and meaningful ways. This pioneering volume presents an alternate history from which emerge rich details about the daily activities, ceremonies, and burial rituals of the St. Johns River Archaic cultures.
Edited by Neill J. Wallis and Asa R. Randall.
Chapters:
--Introduction: New approaches to ancient Florida / Neill J. Wallis and Asa R. Randall
--Archaic histories beyond the shell "heap" on the St. Johns River / Asa R. Randall, Kenneth E. Sassaman, Zackary I. Gilmore, Meggan E. Blessing, and Jason M. O'Donoughue
--Deconstructing and reconstructing Caloosahatchee Shell Mound building / Theresa Schober
-- Monumentality beyond scale: the elaboration of mounded architecture at Crystal River / Thomas J. Pluckhahn and Victor D. Thompson
-- New insights on the woodland and Mississippian periods of west-peninsular Florida / George M. Luer
-- Radiocarbon dates and the late prehistory of Tampa Bay / Robert J. Austin, Jeffrey M. Mitchem, and Brent R. Weisman
-- Northwest Florida woodland mounds and middens: the sacred and not so secular / Michael Russo, Craig Dengel, and Jeffrey Shanks
-- North gulf coastal archaeology of the here and now / Kenneth E. Sassaman, Paulette S. McFadden, Micah P. Monés, Andrea Palmiotto, and Asa R. Randall
-- The modification and manipulation of landscape at Fort Center / Victor D. Thompson and Thomas J. Pluckhahn
-- Crafting orange pottery in early Florida: production and distribution / Rebecca Saunders and Margaret K. Wrenn
-- It's ceremonial, right? Exploring ritual in ancient southern Florida through the Miami Circle / Ryan J. Wheeler and Robert S. Carr
-- Woodland and Mississippian in Northwest Florida: part of the south but different / Nancy Marie White
-- Ritualized practices of the Suwannee Valley culture in North Florida / Neill J. Wallis
-- Ritual at the Mill Cove complex: realms beyond the river / Keith Ashley and Vicki Rolland.""
Papers by Asa Randall
communities of diverse cultural practices and worldviews who negotiated social and ecological environments. Although it
contains evidence for many social and technical strategies, the archaeology of North America has much to contribute to
contemporary and future concerns with climate change and the reconstitution of communities.
Our perspective is inspired by recent insights in social theory that sidestep a sacred-secular dichotomy and related oppositions such as “midden” and “monument” that form the basis of contemporary debate (e.g., Marquardt 2010; see also Russo et al. this volume). We are interested in how Archaic practices—and the objects, persons, materials, and places involved—not only were significant within local temporalities and social contexts but also refer to other times, places, and peoples. Communities constructed their own histories through particular combinations and assemblies of places and things, and these assemblies and combinations are what provided opportunities for transformation (Randall 2011). The past in the form of ancient places or ancestors thus provided important resources for local inhabitants. Moreover, far from excluding the environment as a factor in social change through time, this perspective requires that we consider how past communities experienced and incorporated ecological processes into their worldviews.
the St. Johns River in northeast Florida were some of the first
Archaic freshwater shell sites to be documented in the Southeast.
However, there is much that remains unknown about their
chronology, history, and changing significance through time.
This paper presents a regional chronology of Mount Taylor shell
sites based on radiocarbon assays from well-documented
contexts. Three major changes in the distribution, arrangement,
and use of shell sites are identified which correspond with
significant shifts in social interaction and environmental
change. An examination of the contexts of shell deposition
demonstrates that shell sites were frequently established as
places to dwell and were subsequently transformed into places of
commemorative ceremony or mortuary ritual. The history of
Mount Taylor shell sites has implications for the broader debate
on whether shell sites were middens or monuments."
Integrating more than 150 years of shell mound investigations, including Ripley Bullen’s crucial work, climatological records, and modern remote sensing data, Randall rejects the long-standing ecological interpretation and redefines these sites as socially significant places that reveal previously unknown complexities about the hunter-gatherer societies of the Mount Taylor period (ca. 7400–4600 cal. B.P.). Affected by climate change and increased scales of social interaction, the region’s inhabitants modified the landscape in surprising and meaningful ways. This pioneering volume presents an alternate history from which emerge rich details about the daily activities, ceremonies, and burial rituals of the St. Johns River Archaic cultures.
Edited by Neill J. Wallis and Asa R. Randall.
Chapters:
--Introduction: New approaches to ancient Florida / Neill J. Wallis and Asa R. Randall
--Archaic histories beyond the shell "heap" on the St. Johns River / Asa R. Randall, Kenneth E. Sassaman, Zackary I. Gilmore, Meggan E. Blessing, and Jason M. O'Donoughue
--Deconstructing and reconstructing Caloosahatchee Shell Mound building / Theresa Schober
-- Monumentality beyond scale: the elaboration of mounded architecture at Crystal River / Thomas J. Pluckhahn and Victor D. Thompson
-- New insights on the woodland and Mississippian periods of west-peninsular Florida / George M. Luer
-- Radiocarbon dates and the late prehistory of Tampa Bay / Robert J. Austin, Jeffrey M. Mitchem, and Brent R. Weisman
-- Northwest Florida woodland mounds and middens: the sacred and not so secular / Michael Russo, Craig Dengel, and Jeffrey Shanks
-- North gulf coastal archaeology of the here and now / Kenneth E. Sassaman, Paulette S. McFadden, Micah P. Monés, Andrea Palmiotto, and Asa R. Randall
-- The modification and manipulation of landscape at Fort Center / Victor D. Thompson and Thomas J. Pluckhahn
-- Crafting orange pottery in early Florida: production and distribution / Rebecca Saunders and Margaret K. Wrenn
-- It's ceremonial, right? Exploring ritual in ancient southern Florida through the Miami Circle / Ryan J. Wheeler and Robert S. Carr
-- Woodland and Mississippian in Northwest Florida: part of the south but different / Nancy Marie White
-- Ritualized practices of the Suwannee Valley culture in North Florida / Neill J. Wallis
-- Ritual at the Mill Cove complex: realms beyond the river / Keith Ashley and Vicki Rolland.""
communities of diverse cultural practices and worldviews who negotiated social and ecological environments. Although it
contains evidence for many social and technical strategies, the archaeology of North America has much to contribute to
contemporary and future concerns with climate change and the reconstitution of communities.
Our perspective is inspired by recent insights in social theory that sidestep a sacred-secular dichotomy and related oppositions such as “midden” and “monument” that form the basis of contemporary debate (e.g., Marquardt 2010; see also Russo et al. this volume). We are interested in how Archaic practices—and the objects, persons, materials, and places involved—not only were significant within local temporalities and social contexts but also refer to other times, places, and peoples. Communities constructed their own histories through particular combinations and assemblies of places and things, and these assemblies and combinations are what provided opportunities for transformation (Randall 2011). The past in the form of ancient places or ancestors thus provided important resources for local inhabitants. Moreover, far from excluding the environment as a factor in social change through time, this perspective requires that we consider how past communities experienced and incorporated ecological processes into their worldviews.
the St. Johns River in northeast Florida were some of the first
Archaic freshwater shell sites to be documented in the Southeast.
However, there is much that remains unknown about their
chronology, history, and changing significance through time.
This paper presents a regional chronology of Mount Taylor shell
sites based on radiocarbon assays from well-documented
contexts. Three major changes in the distribution, arrangement,
and use of shell sites are identified which correspond with
significant shifts in social interaction and environmental
change. An examination of the contexts of shell deposition
demonstrates that shell sites were frequently established as
places to dwell and were subsequently transformed into places of
commemorative ceremony or mortuary ritual. The history of
Mount Taylor shell sites has implications for the broader debate
on whether shell sites were middens or monuments."
an analysis of Mount Taylor period (ca. 7300–4600 cal B.P.) shell mounds along the
Middle St. Johns River in northeast Florida. Mount Taylor communities are best known
for the incipient exploitation of shellfish and other aquatic resources in the region. In
Florida and elsewhere, shell mounds are routinely interpreted as refuse accumulations,
while their repeated occupation is taken to represent long-term continuities enabled by
abundant wetland resources. Through a historiography of local research, I show that
this model of shell mound growth reflects widely held anthropological assumptions
regarding hunter-gatherer social simplicity and stasis, and obscures evidence for
change through time. I develop an alternative framework based on practice theory to
detail how shell mounds and associated places emerged as a historical process in
which communities inscribed and politicized social memories through the deposition of
shellfish and other materials within landscapes.
In order to problematize the contexts of shell mound inhabitation, I examine the
paleohydrology of the Middle St. Johns River. I also consider the evidence for continuities in subsistence, settlement, exchange relationships, and mortuary traditions
throughout the Mount Taylor period. The social and ecological contexts provide a
spatial and chronological framework for examining how Mount Taylor communities
inhabited places. Because most shell mounds were destroyed by twentieth century
land-use practices, I use historic observations and modern remote sensing data to
develop a geospatial database detailing the location and organization of Mount Taylor
places. The results of topographic and stratigraphic testing of non-mounded shell sites
are also reported. This analysis details how Mount Taylor communities established and
renewed settlements as witnessed in small-scale depositional practices. Finally, I
reconstruct the histories of six Mount Taylor shell mounds based on stratigraphic
testing.
The results demonstrate that shellfishing was initiated at a time of considerable
landscape instability by arguably diverse regional populations. After being established
as places to dwell, some preexisting settlements were reconfigured as platform mounds
upon which shellfish was deposited in ritualized sequences, while others were
converted into foundations for mortuary mounds. Through time, other shell mounds
experienced complex histories of abandonment, renewal, and transformation as well. I
argue that along the St. Johns, Mount Taylor communities routinely referenced past
places in order to construct new social histories that accommodated or denied social
and ecological change.
bifaces from the Southeastern United States. The impetus was the recognition that these
hafted bifaces exhibit a wide range of variation, the sources of which are not well
documented. Studies of technological organization have shown that there are a few
primary sources of variation, including access to raw material, economizing strategies,
function, and time. To explore sources of variation, a sample of Early Side-Notched
hafted bifaces was drawn from three sites in the Middle Tennessee River Valley in
Alabama. These include Dust Cave, Stanfield-Worley, and 1Fr311. A number of
hypotheses are addressed:
• Frequencies of specific raw material types will decline as a function of distance from
the source.
• Strategies to conserve raw material will occur with increasing frequency as a function
of distance from the source.
• Morphological variation is also the result of functional requirements.
The methodology consisted of identifying raw material types, documenting economizing
strategies such as edge beveling, and exploring the function of the hafted bifaces.
Results of the analysis suggest that much of the variation in the blades of Early
Side-Notched hafted bifaces is the result of raw-material selection. Frequencies of raw
material types decline as a function of distance to the source. While there is a preference
for high-quality raw materials, hafted bifaces were replaced during the course of the
settlement round. Because of the ubiquity of raw materials in the study region, however,
strategies to conserve raw material occur at a minimum, except for examples at
Stanfield-Worley. Fracture patterns suggest that Early Side-Notched hafted bifaces
functioned primarily as projectile points. There appears to be no functional basis for
variation in the base of Early Side-Notched hafted bifaces.
Results of this analysis have several implications for understanding the Early
Side-Notched period. The higher frequency of conservation strategies at
Stanfield-Worley indicates that activities such as the procurement of deer and nut mast
were more important than raw-material procurement. Further, the relatively short
lifespans of the hafted bifaces suggests that the high density of hafted bifaces in the Early
Side-Notched period is more related to chipped-stone-tool economics than to population
densities.