Jessica Jenkins delivers a concise yet powerful reexamination of Florida’s Middle–Late Woodland transition. Drawing on ceramic-analysis techniques, she reframes what many have labeled a societal collapse around 650 A.D. as a deliberate era of social movements and identity formation. Jenkins shows that Indigenous communities in the Lower Suwannee region intentionally dispersed from civic-ceremonial centers, distanced themselves from ancestral burial grounds, altered mortuary customs, and introduced new pottery surface treatments and vessel designs.
By cataloging ceramic assemblages from twelve island sites near present-day Cedar Key, Jenkins identifies material markers of collective identity and traces the relational networks that underpinned transformative change. She explores how these shifts in craft and ritual practice fostered new social bonds across the Gulf Coast landscape.
As the first synthesis of village structures, network dynamics, and communal identities for this place and period, the book offers rich datasets and delivers fresh interpretations of Woodland society. Its 228 compact pages chart the ebb and flow of social movements and underscore the agency of Indigenous actors in shaping their cultural landscapes.
Jenkins’s accessible prose balances empirical rigor with theoretical clarity, making complex arguments approachable for scholars. Her focus on relational networks illustrates how everyday pottery functioned not only as utilitarian vessels but also symbols and mechanisms of communal cohesion during a pivotal era. By shifting the narrative from collapse to transformation, this volume provides a compelling new lens on the power of material culture to illuminate prehistoric social worlds.
