Ph.D. candidate, Anthropology, Univ. of Florida
M.A., Anthropology, Univ. of Florida, 2016
B.A., Anthropology, William and Mary, 2012
Jessica joined the LSA in 2013, and earned her Master’s degree in 2016. Her Master’s thesis on archaeological oyster shell from the Lower Suwannee region provided new insight on coastal people’s subsistence strategies and relationships with the environment. Specifically, she used proxies on archaeological shell excavated from Shell Mound (8LV42), a Woodland period civic-ceremonial center on Florida’s Gulf Coast, to determine what resource niches were being exploited and if mariculture was being practiced as a means to support increased demands placed on the oyster fishery during a time of feasting and terraforming. Before coming to UF, Jessica graduated from the College of William & Mary in 2012. As an undergraduate, Jessica’s research focused on oyster procurement by Algonquian communities living at riverine sites in the Chesapeake area, Virginia.
Current Research Projects
For her dissertation, Jessica will continue her work on Florida’s Gulf Coast, examining a period of time between two phases of aggregation and terraforming in the Lower Suwannee region (A.D. 650–1000). The goal of this research is to explore the role of social movements in the Middle-to-Late Woodland social transformation. Through Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), petrography, and technofunctional analysis of domestic pottery, Jessica hopes to identify and compare social identities and networks during the Middle and Late Woodland periods in order to examine the trajectory of social movements that facilitated transformative change during this time.
Recent Publications
- Sassaman, Kenneth E., Meggan E. Blessing, Joshua M. Goodwin, Jessica A. Jenkins, Ginessa J. Mahar, Anthony Boucher, Terry E. Barbour, and Mark C. Donop. 2020. Maritime Ritual Economy of Cosmic Synchronicity: Summer Solstice Events at a Civic-Ceremonial Center on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida. American Antiquity 85:22-50.
- Jenkins, Jessica A. 2019. The Site In-Between in the Lower Suwannee: Excavations at Dan May (8LV917), Levy County, Florida. Florida Anthropologist 71:61–76.
- Jenkins, Jessica A. and Martin D. Gallivan. 2019. Shell on Earth: Oyster Harvesting, Consumption, and Deposition Practices in the Powhatan Chesapeake. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. DOI:10.1080/15564894.2019.1643430.
- Gallivan, Martin D., Christopher J. Shephard, and Jessica A. Jenkins. 2018. The Power of Powhatan Towns: Socializing Manitou in the Algonquian Chesapeake.In The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America, edited by Jennifer Birch and Victor D. Thompson. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
- Jenkins, Jessica A. 2017. Methods for Inferring Oyster Mariculture on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Journal of Archaeological Science 80C:74-82.
- Sassaman, K. E., N. J. Wallis, P. M. McFadden. G. J. Mahar, J. A. Jenkins, M. C. Donop, M. P. Mones, A. Palmiotto, A. Boucher. J. M. Goodwin, C. I. Oliveira. 2017. Keeping Pace with Rising Sea: The First Six Years of the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 12:173-199.