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In 1763, Spanish ships set sail from the Atlantic Coast of Florida heading toward Havana, thus ending two centuries of Spanish colonization and proselytizing of the region. These ships carried the few remaining individuals from the indigenous colonial populations (the Apalachee, Guale, and Timucua) that had survived decades of social upheaval and alterations in traditional lifeways. Although Spain would return to La Florida twenty years later for a brief period of occupation, the Native American populations did not. The ceding of St. Augustine in 1763 was, therefore, the culmination of a long process of Native American acculturation, resistance, and adaptation initiated by Ponce de León’s 1513 Gulf Coast landing and subsequent claiming of lands north of New Spain for the Spanish Crown. Historical documents provide considerable insight into what life was like during the contact period. They are not, however , complete. And, for the biological anthropologist, the evolutionary consequences of the mission experience remain unclear. This book investigates patterns of biological variability in light of the mission history to supplement the historical record in a way that will be useful to historians, archaeologists, and physical anthropologists. Speci¤cally, this book investigates changes in population levels of phenotypic variability for two tribal groups (the Guale and Apalachee) through three time periods, Late Precontact (~a.d. 1200–1400), Early Mission (a.d. 1600– 1650), and Late Mission (~a.d. 1650–1706). By focusing on comparisons within groups, I evaluate the pattern of changes in phenotypic (tooth size) variability (increase, decrease, or stasis) and relate observed trends to prevailing models of New World population demography and ethnohistoric details of population structure and interaction patterns. Ultimately I hope to reconstruct the evolutionary impact of Spanish policy and Native American response to this policy, and further detail the rapidly changing sociopolitical world in which the indigenous populations of La Florida found themselves. 1 Historical Bioarchaeology The social history of Spanish Florida identi¤es two overarching processes de¤ning changes in population composition through time. First, population sizes were declining, albeit at different rates in different regions. Second, population aggregation and migration were occurring largely in response to the rate of localized demographic collapse. Aggregation can therefore be viewed as secondary to population demography and as a reactionary process designed to mitigate the deleterious effects of demographic collapse. Where demographic collapse was most severe, the hierarchical process of population aggregation was most aggressive. In this sense, “hierarchical” refers to the fact that aggregation proceeded along a de¤ned, progressive pathway, from the local to the regional to the supraregional. Expansion of the “burial catchment,” that is, the geographical area from which a particular mission community cemetery received deaths, has several predicted effects depending on the structure of population relationships in preceding time periods. Aggregation of biologically integrated populations is an evolutionary non-event, whereas aggregation of divergent populations (and admixture between them) leads to predictable evolutionary genetic responses. Ethnohistory’s contributions to this discussion are twofold. First, ethnohistoric data provide estimates of population size that are directly related to expected intensities of population aggregation. Quality varies considerably (see Henige 1998), a topic returned to throughout this book. Second, ethnohistory provides statements regarding the expected biological consequences of aggregation , where it did occur. In other words, ethnohistoric data can be used to de¤ne population interaction boundaries, to predict changes in the size of the population, and to predict diachronic changes in between-group interaction patterns. This book considers the effects of “collapse aggregation” in terms of synchronic and diachronic differentials in genetic variability. Where there is documented stasis or a decrease in genetic variability, paleogenetic bioarchaeology informs about rates of population size reduction and the effects of genetic drift. For example, a decline in genetic variability suggests a similar decline in population size. Static genetic variances suggest no change in population size between time periods. Where there is a documented increase in genetic variability, paleogenetic bioarchaeology informs about precontact population structure and patterns of gene ®ow during the contact period. For example, knowledge of contact between two populations during the historic period, combined with genetic variability estimates for both populations during sequential time periods, allows inference about the degree of biological integration of these populations during the earlier time period.If variability increases, it is assumed the populations were previously genetically distinct. Assuming veracity of the contact era data (population size debates notwithstanding), the 2 Chapter 1 approach adopted in this book has the ability to evaluate simultaneously the accuracy of archaeologically and historically...

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