Kenneth E Sassaman

Biographic Data

ID	83254
NAME	Kenneth E Sassaman
GIVEN NAMES	Kenneth E
FAMILY NAME	Sassaman
SIGNATURE	SASSAMAN K E
AFFILIATIONS	University of Florida
ORCID	0000-0002-5463-0775
VERIFIED	Yes
TOTAL WORKS	55
TOTAL CITATIONS	344
AUTHOR COUNT	54
EDITOR COUNT	1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR	1989
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR	2025
H-INDEX	9

The Promise and Peril of Coastal Infrastructure: Use Life of a Tidal Fish Trap on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida, circa AD 400-650
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Ginessa Mahar et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2025References: 10
The potential of coastal regimes for supporting permanent human settlement is tempered by the vulnerability of fixed infrastructure to changes in sea levels. First-millennium AD civic-ceremonial centers on the northern Gulf coast of Florida involved the construction of permanent infrastructure in support of regional gatherings that challenged sustainable settlement in the context of regressive sea. Although rising sea was the more common challeng…
Terrestrial snails from archaeological sites as proxies for relative sea level on the Gulf Coast of Florida, USA
Kenneth E Sassaman, Caroline A Steffy et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2022Cited by: 1References: 6
Archaeological evidence for local environmental change is obscured by the tendency for humans to remove natural resources from places of procurement and deposit them elsewhere, sometimes at great distance. This is especially problematic for changes in relative sea level, which clearly affected the inhabitability of low-elevation coastal landforms but not necessarily the regional availability of resources of cultural or economic value. Needed are …
Hickory nut storage and processing at the Victor Mills site (9CB138) and implications for Late Archaic land use in the middle Savannah River valley
Kenneth E Sassaman, Emily R BartzARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2022Cited by: 3References: 10
Despite the ubiquity of charred hickory nutshell in archaeological contexts throughout the Eastern Woodlands, evidence for nut processing and storage is elusive and ambiguous. To the extent that hickory nuts factored prominently in Indigenous foodways – particularly as a storable resource – mass processing was possibly specialized at times and sited in places for that express purpose. One such place was Victor Mills (9CB138) in Columbia County, G…
When edges become centered: The ceramic social geography of early pottery communities of the American Southeast
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Zackary I GilmoreARTICLEJournal of Anthropological…2021Cited by: 6References: 26
Cosmic Abandonment: How Detaching from Place Was Requisite to World Renewal in the Ancient American Southeast
Kenneth E Sassaman, Asa R RandallCHAPTERDetachment from Place2020
Birds of Summer Solstice: World-Renewal Rituality on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida
Open AccessJoshua M Goodwin, Kenneth E Sassaman et al.ARTICLECambridge Archaeological Journal2020Cited by: 2References: 28
Prevalent as bird imagery is in the ritual traditions of eastern North America, the bony remains of birds are relatively sparse in archaeological deposits and when present are typically viewed as subsistence remains. A first-millennium ad civic-ceremonial centre on the northern Gulf Coast of Florida contains large pits with bird bones amid abundant fish bone and other taxa. The avian remains are dominated by elements of juvenile white ibises, bir…
Maritime Ritual Economies of Cosmic Synchronicity: Summer Solstice Events at a Civic-Ceremonial Center on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Meggan E Blessing et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2020Cited by: 9References: 44
Places such as Poverty Point, Mound City, and Chaco Canyon remind us that the siting of ritual infrastructure in ancient North America was a matter of cosmological precedent. The cosmic gravity of these places gathered persons periodically in numbers that challenged routine production. Ritual economies intensified, but beyond the material demands of hosting people, the siting of these places and the timing of gatherings were cosmic work that prec…
Geochemical sourcing of fiber-tempered pottery and the organization of Late Archaic Stallings communities in the American Southeast
Open AccessZackary I Gilmore, Kenneth E Sassaman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science2018Cited by: 7References: 5
Terraforming the middle ground in ancient Florida
Asa Randall, Asa R Randall et al.ARTICLEHunter Gatherer Research2017
All societies face contradictions between experienced pasts, imagined futures and the reality of the present. Changing social and ecological contexts are catalysts for intervention by communities hoping to restore or assert structure during turbulent times. Terraforming is one mode of intervention in which large-scale modifications to land reference ancient times, events and persons to create new opportunities for the future. At the landscape sca…
Situating the Claiborne Soapstone Vessel Cache in the History of Poverty Point
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Samuel O Brooke et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2017Cited by: 5References: 14
A cache of 12 soapstone vessels from the Claiborne site in Mississippi was recently repatriated to the state after being excavated in 1968 and removed to Ohio. As a locus of Poverty Point affiliation, Claiborne was positioned along a Gulf Coast route for the influx of soapstone into the lower Mississippi valley from quarries in the southern Appalachians, hundreds of kilometers to the east. Although residents of Claiborne were likely to have been …
Keeping Pace With Rising Sea: The First 6 Years of the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey, Gulf Coastal Florida
Kenneth E Sassaman, Neill J Wallis et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2016Cited by: 11References: 11
Low-gradient coastlines are susceptible to inundation by rising water, but they also promote marsh aggradation that has the potential to keep pace with sea-level rise. Synergies among hydrodynamics, coastal geomorphology, and marsh ecology preclude a simple linear relationship between higher water and shoreline transgression. As an archive of human use of low-gradient coastlines, archaeological data introduce additional mitigating factors, such a…
Futurologists Look Back
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLEArchaeologies2012Cited by: 7References: 14
Chapter 5. Cultures of Daily Practice
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
References Cited
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
Chapter 3. Landscapes of Historical Practice
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
Chapter 2. A Continental Vista
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
Chapter 6. Structure Transformed
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
Index
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
Chapter 4. Craftworks of Structure
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
Chapter 1. Prehistory Reloaded
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERThe Eastern Archaic, Historicized2010
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized
Kenneth E SassamanBOOKThe Eastern Archaic, historicized2010Cited by: 22
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized offers an alternative perspective on the genesis and transformation of cultural diversity over eight millennia of hunter-gatherer dwelling in eastern North America. For many decades, archaeological understanding of Archaic diversity has been dominated by perspectives that emphasize localized relationships between humans and environment. The evidence, shows, however that Archaic people routinely associated with ot…
Eastern Archaic, Historicized
Kenneth E SassamanBOOKEastern Archaic, Historicized2010Cited by: 4
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized offers an alternative perspective on the genesis and transformation of cultural diversity over eight millennia of hunter-gatherer dwelling in eastern North America. For many decades, archaeological understanding of Archaic diversity has been dominated by perspectives that emphasize localized relationships between humans and environment. The evidence, shows, however that Archaic people routinely associated with ot…
The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast
David G Anderson, Kenneth E SassamanBOOKPaleoindian and Early Archaic…2009
Early Archaic Settlement in the South Carolina Coastal Plain
Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERPaleoindian and Early Archaic…2009
Paleoindian and Early Archaic Research in the South Carolina Area
David G Anderson, Kenneth E SassamanCHAPTERPaleoindian and Early Archaic…2009

Complex Hunter–Gatherers in Evolution and History: A North American Perspective
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Research2004Cited by: 98References: 64
Poverty Point as Structure, Event, Process
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Method…2005Cited by: 54References: 16
Communities of Practice in the Early Pottery Traditions of the American Southeast
Kenneth E Sassaman, Wictoria RudolphiARTICLEJournal of Anthropological Research2001Cited by: 52References: 3
The oldest pottery traditions of the southeastern United States include a series of punctated wares geographically clustered in three locales of the Savannah River region. Although potters in each locale decorated and used pots in virtually identical fashion, they tempered clays and formed vessels in appreciably different ways. Situated learning theory offers a framework for interpreting these divergent trends in early pottery by focusing attenti…
Lithic Technology and the Hunter-Gatherer Sexual Division of Labor
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLENorth American Archaeologist1993Cited by: 32References: 5
A technological change from formal to expedient core reduction marks the “transition” from mobile to sedentary prehistoric societies in many parts of the world. The phenomenon has often been attributed to changes in the organization of men's activities, particularly hunting. Considering, however, that the change coincides with the adoption of pottery, technology usually attributed to women, an alternative explanation must be considered. From the …
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized
Kenneth E SassamanBOOKThe Eastern Archaic, historicized2010Cited by: 22
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized offers an alternative perspective on the genesis and transformation of cultural diversity over eight millennia of hunter-gatherer dwelling in eastern North America. For many decades, archaeological understanding of Archaic diversity has been dominated by perspectives that emphasize localized relationships between humans and environment. The evidence, shows, however that Archaic people routinely associated with ot…
Stallings Island Revisited: New Evidence for Occupational History, Community Pattern, and Subsistence Technology
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Meggan E Blessing et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2006Cited by: 14
For nearly 150 years Stallings Island, Georgia has figured prominently in the conceptualization of Late Archaic culture in the American Southeast, most notably in its namesake pottery series, the oldest in North America, and more recently, in models of economic change among hunter-gatherer societies broadly classified as the Shell Mound Archaic. Recent fieldwork resulting in new radiocarbon assays from secure contexts pushes back the onset of int…
Keeping Pace With Rising Sea: The First 6 Years of the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey, Gulf Coastal Florida
Kenneth E Sassaman, Neill J Wallis et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2016Cited by: 11References: 11
Low-gradient coastlines are susceptible to inundation by rising water, but they also promote marsh aggradation that has the potential to keep pace with sea-level rise. Synergies among hydrodynamics, coastal geomorphology, and marsh ecology preclude a simple linear relationship between higher water and shoreline transgression. As an archive of human use of low-gradient coastlines, archaeological data introduce additional mitigating factors, such a…
Maritime Ritual Economies of Cosmic Synchronicity: Summer Solstice Events at a Civic-Ceremonial Center on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Meggan E Blessing et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2020Cited by: 9References: 44
Places such as Poverty Point, Mound City, and Chaco Canyon remind us that the siting of ritual infrastructure in ancient North America was a matter of cosmological precedent. The cosmic gravity of these places gathered persons periodically in numbers that challenged routine production. Ritual economies intensified, but beyond the material demands of hosting people, the siting of these places and the timing of gatherings were cosmic work that prec…
Dating and Explaining Soapstone Vessels: A Comment on Truncer
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2006Cited by: 9References: 7
A recent paper by Truncer (2004) perpetuates the recalcitrant misconception that soapstone vessel technology uniformly predates the inception of pottery across eastern North America. Whereas soapstone vessels indeed preceded the local adoption of pottery in limited areas, the bulk of stratigraphic and independent radiometric data supports the conclusion that soapstone vessels either accompanied or postdated the inception of pottery in many parts …
Geochemical sourcing of fiber-tempered pottery and the organization of Late Archaic Stallings communities in the American Southeast
Open AccessZackary I Gilmore, Kenneth E Sassaman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science2018Cited by: 7References: 5
Futurologists Look Back
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLEArchaeologies2012Cited by: 7References: 14
When edges become centered: The ceramic social geography of early pottery communities of the American Southeast
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Zackary I GilmoreARTICLEJournal of Anthropological…2021Cited by: 6References: 26
Situating the Claiborne Soapstone Vessel Cache in the History of Poverty Point
Open AccessKenneth E Sassaman, Samuel O Brooke et al.ARTICLEAmerican Antiquity2017Cited by: 5References: 14
A cache of 12 soapstone vessels from the Claiborne site in Mississippi was recently repatriated to the state after being excavated in 1968 and removed to Ohio. As a locus of Poverty Point affiliation, Claiborne was positioned along a Gulf Coast route for the influx of soapstone into the lower Mississippi valley from quarries in the southern Appalachians, hundreds of kilometers to the east. Although residents of Claiborne were likely to have been …
Eastern Archaic, Historicized
Kenneth E SassamanBOOKEastern Archaic, Historicized2010Cited by: 4
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized offers an alternative perspective on the genesis and transformation of cultural diversity over eight millennia of hunter-gatherer dwelling in eastern North America. For many decades, archaeological understanding of Archaic diversity has been dominated by perspectives that emphasize localized relationships between humans and environment. The evidence, shows, however that Archaic people routinely associated with ot…
Crafting Cultural Identity in Hunter-Gatherer Economies
Open AccessKenneth E SassamanARTICLEArcheological Papers of the…1998Cited by: 4References: 22
All economic action is a moment of cultural creation and interpretation. This process occurs, according to classic political-economic theory, when productive labor is applied to transform matter into socially valued resources. Lacking the material resources so conspicuous in food-producing economies, hunter-gatherers are not usually considered transformational, but rather appropriative. This is an unfortunate dichotomy from the standpoint of cult…
Production for Exchange in the Mid-Holocene Southeast: A Savannah River Valley Example
Kenneth E SassamanARTICLELithic Technology1994Cited by: 4References: 8
At various places across the American Southeast during the mid-Holocene, bifaces were produced for nonsubsistence purposes, including mortuary offerings and exchange. Examples of biface caches and oversized forms are not uncommon at sites in the Midsouth, and locations of biface production have been noted at numerous sites near sources of high-quality chert. Unfortunately, analyses of production debris have not been conducted, so there exists no …
Hickory nut storage and processing at the Victor Mills site (9CB138) and implications for Late Archaic land use in the middle Savannah River valley
Kenneth E Sassaman, Emily R BartzARTICLESoutheastern Archaeology2022Cited by: 3References: 10
Despite the ubiquity of charred hickory nutshell in archaeological contexts throughout the Eastern Woodlands, evidence for nut processing and storage is elusive and ambiguous. To the extent that hickory nuts factored prominently in Indigenous foodways – particularly as a storable resource – mass processing was possibly specialized at times and sited in places for that express purpose. One such place was Victor Mills (9CB138) in Columbia County, G…
Birds of Summer Solstice: World-Renewal Rituality on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida
Open AccessJoshua M Goodwin, Kenneth E Sassaman et al.ARTICLECambridge Archaeological Journal2020Cited by: 2References: 28
Prevalent as bird imagery is in the ritual traditions of eastern North America, the bony remains of birds are relatively sparse in archaeological deposits and when present are typically viewed as subsistence remains. A first-millennium ad civic-ceremonial centre on the northern Gulf Coast of Florida contains large pits with bird bones amid abundant fish bone and other taxa. The avian remains are dominated by elements of juvenile white ibises, bir…
Terrestrial snails from archaeological sites as proxies for relative sea level on the Gulf Coast of Florida, USA
Kenneth E Sassaman, Caroline A Steffy et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2022Cited by: 1References: 6
Archaeological evidence for local environmental change is obscured by the tendency for humans to remove natural resources from places of procurement and deposit them elsewhere, sometimes at great distance. This is especially problematic for changes in relative sea level, which clearly affected the inhabitability of low-elevation coastal landforms but not necessarily the regional availability of resources of cultural or economic value. Needed are …