Kenneth E. Sassaman

Hyatt and Cici Brown Professor of Florida Archaeology

Ph.D., Anthropology, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1991
M.A., Public-Service Archaeology, Univ. of South Carolina, 1983
B.A., Anthropology, Univ. of Maryland, 1979

After working in South Carolina for 12 years with the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program (1987-98), Ken joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, University of Florida in 1998 and began long-term research in the middle St. Johns region of northeast Florida. Research in both regions centers on the culture history of ancient hunter-gatherers of the Archaic Period (ca. 11,000-3000 years ago). In 2009 he launched the  Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey on the northern Gulf Coast of Florida to investigate the material realities and cultural interventions of climate change and sea-level rise over the past 5,000 years.

Current Research Projects

As work continues on a backlog of collections and results from the middle Savannah and St. Johns valleys, as well as the northern Gulf coast, Ken has launched a project in Alachua County that serves the needs to train students in cultural resource management in conjunction with the new Masters of Science in Archaeology option. Survey has thus far centered on Lake Pithlachocco (aka Newnans Lake), where drought 25 years ago revealed 101 dugout canoes dating to the past 5,500 years. Guiding the survey of adjoining land are two interrelated questions: (1) how did the periodicity and magnitude of flooding affect land use over the millennia, and (2) how did fluctuations in surface water affect travel across the peninsula by canoe? The latter question emerges from a growing body of evidence on the provenance of both stone and clay that leads to the inference that movements across the north half of the Florida peninsula were common throughout ancient times but likely intensified during hydroperiods when one could travel by canoe from the Atlantic Ocean to southern Alachua County, and from northern Alachua County to the Gulf of Mexico, without touching land. The first report of survey on Lake Pithlachocco is posted on the Publications page of this website.

Recent Publications

• Sassaman, Kenneth E., Ginessa J. Mahar, Edward P. Allen, Whittaker C. Schroder, Angelica Almeyda Zambrano, Eben N. Broadbent, and Richard Kanaski. 2026. The Promise and Peril of Coastal Infrastructure: Use Life of a Tidal Fish Trap on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida, ca. 400-650 CE. American Antiquity 91:149-167.
• Sassaman, Kenneth E., Caroline A. Steffy, Seth C. Shanefield, Ginessa J. Mahar, and John D. Slapcinsky. 2022. Terrestrial Snails from Archaeological Sites as Proxies for Relative Sea Level on the Gulf Coast of Florida, USA. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 19:448-462.
• Sassaman, Kenneth E., and Emily R. Bartz. 2022. Hickory Nut Storage and Processing at the Victor Mills Site (9CB138) and Implications for Late Archaic Land Use in the Middle Savannah River Valley. Southeastern Archaeology 41:71-97.
• Sassaman, Kenneth E., and Zackary I. Gilmore. 2021. When Edges Become Centered: The Ceramic Social Geography of Early Pottery Communities of the American Southeast. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 61.
• Pauketat, Timothy R., and Kenneth E. Sassaman. 2020. The Archaeology of Ancient North America. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• 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.
• Barbour, Terry E., Kenneth E. Sassaman, Angelica Maria Almeyda Zambrano, Eben North Broadbent,  Ben Wilkinson, and Richard Kanaski. 2019. Rare Pre-Columbian Settlement on the Florida Gulf Coast Revealed through High-Resolution Drone LiDAR Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:23493-23498.
• Goodwin, Joshua M., Kenneth E. Sassaman, Meggan E. Blessing, and David W. Steadman. 2019. Birds of Summer Solstice: World-Renewal Rituality on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida. Cambridge Archaeological Journal.
• Gilmore, Zackary I., Kenneth E. Sassaman, and Michael Glascock. 2018. Geochemical Sourcing of Fiber-Tempered Pottery and the Organization of Late Archaic Communities in the American Southeast. Journal of Archaeological Science 99:35-46
• Sassaman, Kenneth E., and Samuel O. Brookes. 2017. Situating the Claiborne Soapstone Vessel Cache in the History of Poverty Point. American Antiquity 82:781-797.
• 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.
• Randall, Asa R., and Kenneth E. Sassaman. 2017. Terraforming the Middle Ground in Ancient Florida. Hunter-Gatherer Research 3:9-29.
• Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2016. A Constellation of Practice in the Experience of Sea-Level Rise. In Knowledge in Motion: Constellations of Learning across Time and Space, edited by Andrew Roddick and Ann Stahl, pp. 271-298. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Copies of other publications by Ken Sassaman are available on Academia.edu