Collaborative Research: Apalachicola Ecosystems Project

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With support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Thomas Foster, Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman, Roger Brown, and the Apalachicola Ecosystems Project (AEP) will advance the understanding of the dynamic relationship of humans and their physical and social environment. The AEP will use archaeological, historical, and ancient botanical data to investigate how Native American populations adapted to a changing biophysical and colonial environment. The AEP's interdisciplinary approach integrates ecological systems and human agency in the analysis of socio-ecological resilience in the face of dynamic and nonlinear changes in the political, social, and ecological environments. This project will use a unique case where the emigrant and immigrant sites of a single town are well documented. By studying the archaeological sites of Apalachicola (1715-1836) in eastern Alabama and accurately controlling for temporal variation, this project will characterize how humans dynamically adapt to and, simultaneously, affect their biophysical and social environment. Apalachicola was one of the most politically important Creek Indian towns and was, according to historic legend, the site of the origin of the Creek Confederacy. The objectives of the AEP are to (1) investigate how Native Americans maintained social, economic, and ecological viability in the face of substantial and rapid change to the social and biophysical environments, (2) identify the anthropogenic effects of the Creek Indian economic strategies on plant and animal communities, and (3) better understand Native American social, economic, and ecological resilience during the Historic Period. Sections of two archaeological sites will be excavated, Apalachicola town (1757-1836) and Apalachicola Old Town (1715-1757), to measure cultural resilience throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The project will couple the archaeological investigations with historical research to elucidate broader political climate, alliances, and conflicts. Finally, the project will measure local changes in the biophysical environment through pollen cores, analysis of anthropogenic changes in the plant and animal communities, and climate variation. The intellectual merit of the AEP is relevant to studies of resilience theory and risk management, historical ecology and environmental management. Reconstructing human impact upon, and interaction with, past environments is important to our understanding of current human affected environments. This project will contribute to our understanding of how the Southeastern Indians adapted to a diverse plant and animal environment within a changing social and economic environment. The project will also help refine our understanding of the processes of historical ecology, migration, and cultural resilience in an understudied region. The broader impacts of this study are significant to a wide range of fields and will contribute to scientific education and descendant communities. The study of anthropogenic effects on the environment is one of the most important problems facing humans today. The Apalachicola Ecosystems Project is relevant to modern forest managers, policy makers, environmental historians, anthropologists, culture historians, and ecologists. The AEP will further understanding of how humans use culture to adapt to and modify their physical environment as well as contribute to student training.