Bioarchaeology of Ethnogenesis in the Colonial Southeast
The story of Spanish explorers, the missions that followed, English slave raids, and Creek and Seminole political machinations has previously been told through the lens of history and archaeology. Christopher Stojanowski adds a biological component to the saga of colonial demographic collapse by focusing on identity transcendence and regeneration. As such, this work offers a different perspective on Florida’s indigenous tribes, one that is explicitly interdisciplinary in inferring the formation of a new ethnic consciousness among La Florida’s indigenous communities.
Bio
Christopher Stojanowski, a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, is a bioarchaeologist who specializes in the analysis of human skeletal remains and dentition. He uses information from ancient sites to reconstruct the lives of past peoples, focusing on the Holocene skeletal record of the New World and Africa.
Praise for this book
Clearly and elegantly demonstrates how bioarchaeological data, specifically metric data on dental morphology, can be used to elucidate otherwise obscured patterns of social identity, cultural change, and the circumstances which drove the formation of ethnic identities … throughout a volatile but poorly documented period of history in the southeastern U.S.
South Carolina Antiquities
"Stojanowski compellingly situates biological distance research as central to the ethnohistorical and anthropological study of Native American and colonial history in the Southeastern United States. The intricate discussion of his statistical methodology — especially his acute and appropriate attention to the microevolutionary basis of his analyses and results — will very much be a must-read for all bioarchaeologists."
Ann M. Kakaliouras Whittier College
