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8. Local and Global Histories
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creased birth rates but also in admixture with populations beyond normative prescriptions (Worth 1995:34). According to Worth, “Mission chiefs occasionally complained that most of the young males eligible for marriage lived or spent long periods of time in St. Augustine as wage laborers, leaving mission villages with a surfeit of unmarried young women” (Worth, 2001:18). Changes in patterns of warfare and concomitant shifts in the political landscape also removed precontact barriers to travel and interaction. Most signi¤cant is the Spanish negotiated peace among warring tribes. As they did for the Apalachee, Yustaga, and various Muskogean populations north and west of Apalachee, the Spanish were successful negotiators of peace among Guale, Timucua, and Orista because it directly served their needs and ful¤lled their charge to pacify and convert indigenous populations. Because it is known that Guale and Orista were at war at the time of contact (Lanning 1935:38) and that Guale and Mocama were at war (Worth 1995, 1998b), the resolution of these disputes led to more ®uid population boundaries, resulting in an increase in biological interaction among these populations. That we see evidence for increased variability af¤rms positions that these groups were distinct before contact (chapter 3). Such accommodation was particularly acute after 1650, when Guale and Mocama become uni¤ed in the wake of demographic collapse (Worth 1995). Individual identities are maintained, but political divisions disappear and cultural homogenization ensues. At the same time that Guale population sizes were declining and male transiency was increasing, numerous nonlocal groups appeared on the fringe of Guale territory. Chichimeco attacks began in 1661,the Yamassee appeared,disappeared , and reappeared beginning in the 1660s, and interaction with remnant eastern Timucua populations, in particular the Mocama, increased (Worth 1995), all providing opportunities for mate exchange previously unavailable. Although the severity of epidemics was maximized in Guale, the patterns of diversity at Santa Catalina de Guale, and the processes proposed to explain this diversity, are very similar to those operating during the tenure of San Luis’s existence: contact, aggregation, and admixture. According to Worth, signi¤cant numbers of refugees from more distant regions ultimately settled within the mission system during the ¤nal decades of the 17th century (Worth, 1995, 1998b). Even though some of these immigrants remained only a short time within Spanish Florida, their presence within and adjacent to established mission communities undoubtedly resulted in at least some biological impact on local populations, particularly with regard to physical characteristics linked to ethnic origin. (Worth 2001:5) The major difference between Santa Catalina and San Luis, however, is the bioarchaeological record of morbidity and stress in the former population. Al148 Chapter 7 though both cemeteries were extremely overcrowded with disturbed interments , skeletal indicators of poor health were less prevalent at San Luis. I propose that this lack re®ects historical reality for the Apalachee, and I argue for a more subdued epidemic effect and a more integral out-migration effect in explaining temporal decreases in population size. However, there is little disparity between the historical, archaeological, bioarchaeological, and paleogenetic records for Santa Catalina. Historical claims of disease epidemics do manifest as increased morbidity and decreased health in the skeletal record. Years of stable isotope investigation on the Georgia coast uniformly suggest an increase in the consumption of maize (less negative carbon signatures) and a decrease in the consumption of marine resources (less positive nitrogen signatures ) after contact (Larsen et al. 2001; Schoeninger et al. 1990). There is little difference between early and late mission contexts; however, the transition to the mission period is marked. The effects of a maize-based diet on health can be dramatic owing to both amino acid de¤ciencies and the effects of reduced iron bioavailability, which leads to poor health (Larsen et al. 2001). Larsen concludes that “poor diets—and the associated poor nutrition—can exacerbate the effects of infection. Poor nutrition and infection have a synergistic relationship. . . . malnourished people are more susceptible to infection, and people with an infection have a worsened nutritional status” (Larsen et al. 2001:74–75). Such a position is well documented for the Guale. Larsen and Harn (1994) examined the bone-speci¤c prevalence of periostitis and found a signi¤cantly higher prevalence in the tibia and femur of contact period samples. They proposed that this resulted from population aggregation and the emergence of novel or more virulent forms of pathogens. Larsen and Sering (2000) and Schmidt (1993) investigated changes in the frequency of anemic indicators such...