Congratulations to Jess who has just published a new paper in “Southeastern Archaeology”.
The new paper provides evidence for human occupation along the northern and eastern Gulf of Mexico during the middle to late Holocene transition (MH-LHT). It had been assumed that people ignored coastal zones before the late Holocene, due to coastal instability and an alleged lack of ecological resources. Only stable coastlines, it was argued, could support sufficiently abundant resources to attract higher populations who in turn shifted to sedentary settlements, elaboration of cultural identities, and even monumental architecture. The paper examines a large database of sites derived from the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) within the northern and eastern Gulf of Mexico coastal plain and suggests that persistent use of the coastline appears to have been the case, while ecological indicators suggest complex human relationships with evolving MH-LHT ecosystems.

Jess is a researcher on the LOTE project and a member of our Submerged Landscape Research Centre – https://submergedlandscapes.teamapp.com/

Great stuff!

Read the full paper at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0734578X.2025.2553966#abstract