Papers by Meggan Blessing
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2019
Prevalent as bird imagery is in the ritual traditions of eastern North America, the bony remains ... more 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, birds that were taken from offshore rookeries at the time of summer solstices. The pits into which they were deposited were emplaced on a relict dune with solstice orientations. The timing and siting of solstice feasts at this particular centre invites discussion of world-renewal rituality and the significance of birds in not only the timing of these events but also possibly as agents of balance and rejuvenation.
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Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25:79-98. doi:10.1017/S0959774314000699, Feb 2015
Interactions with the bodies of hunted animals often follow prescriptions pertaining to social re... more Interactions with the bodies of hunted animals often follow prescriptions pertaining to social relationships among human and non-human persons. Despite this, deposits of archaeological food remains are seldom considered in terms of deliberate placement, instead serving primarily as reflections of preparation and consumption activities. The residues of feasts, in particular, are often highlighted as indexes of special consumption events, although such salient occasions might also be expected to highlight ritualized depositional practices as well. This study reconsiders the archaeological residues of feasts through the vantage of a fauna-filled pit in late Pre-Columbian Florida. Most of the contents of the feature correlate
with a large feast, but the structure of the deposit and inclusion of specific elements reflects scrupulous emplacement. Drawing on North American relational ontologies, we explore the idea that this pit feature was created as a deliberate bundle, the result of an intentional act of interment that was concerned with positioning its contents in ways that manifested and shaped various relationships.
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Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2015
Feasts are important social events but their traces in the archaeological record are often ambigu... more Feasts are important social events but their traces in the archaeological record are often ambiguous. The residues of feasts among mobile hunter–gatherers are particularly difficult to discern due to the rarity of association with structural remains and anthropological expectations for large feasts to be limited to complex societies. This article considers the potential of isolated single event pit features in documenting the scale and composition of feasts among small scale foragers. The results of faunal analysis from a large pit feature associated with a burial mound at the late pre-Columbian Parnell site in northern Florida demonstrate the importance of pits in representing discrete depositional events that followed feasts. While the taxa, element distribution, and associated artifacts would be impossible to differentiate from domestic refuse in a midden context, the discrete and isolated context at Parnell, far from residential sites and the influence of Mississippian chiefdoms, gives visibility to a large social event incommensurate with the density of population in the area. The orchestration of such a large feast, likely associated with a funeral event, denotes networks of obligation that extended beyond those typical of small scale foragers, indicating a degree of social complexity belied by other categories of archaeological remains.
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Papers by Meggan Blessing
with a large feast, but the structure of the deposit and inclusion of specific elements reflects scrupulous emplacement. Drawing on North American relational ontologies, we explore the idea that this pit feature was created as a deliberate bundle, the result of an intentional act of interment that was concerned with positioning its contents in ways that manifested and shaped various relationships.
with a large feast, but the structure of the deposit and inclusion of specific elements reflects scrupulous emplacement. Drawing on North American relational ontologies, we explore the idea that this pit feature was created as a deliberate bundle, the result of an intentional act of interment that was concerned with positioning its contents in ways that manifested and shaped various relationships.