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Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology

Zackary I. Gilmore

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rollins College

Ph.D., Anthropology, Univ. of Florida, 2014
M.A., Anthropology, SIU Carbondale, 2007
B.A., Anthropology, Texas A&M Univ., 2003

Zack combines geochemical sourcing techniques and contemporary social theory to study the ways in which communities are created and maintained through material practices such as crafting, exchange, and monument construction. His specific research interests are centered in the American Southeast and include pre-Columbian shell mounds, early pottery technology and provenance, Late Archaic social histories, and public archaeology. Zack received his Ph.D. in 2014 from the University of Florida, where his dissertation focused on elucidating the social scale and historical impact of ritual gathering events at Silver Glen, an elaborate shell mound complex in Florida’s St. Johns River Valley.

Current Research Projects

Zack is currently engaged in two separate research projects. The first is an NSF-funded study conducted in collaboration with Ken Sassaman and geared toward reconstructing the “ceramic social geography” of Late Archaic Stallings communities along the Savannah River in South Carolina and Georgia. Specifically, this project involves gathering provenance data from Stallings pottery in order to examine the transition from dispersed regional networks of interaction to fixed place-based communities among North America’s earliest pottery-making societies.

Zack is also in the early stages of a long-term research program called the Central Florida Shell Mound Survey, focused on understanding the construction and use (both past and present) of the poorly documented shell mound sites located along the Upper St. Johns River and its tributaries. Data related to this project come from fieldwork conducted through the Central Florida Archaeological Field School and from the ongoing rehabilitation and analysis of existing collections housed at the Rollins College Archaeology Lab.

Recent Publications

  • Randall, Asa R., and Zackary I. Gilmore. 2018. The Itineraries of Late Archaic Shell and Ceramic Cooking Vessels. In Investigating the Ordinary: Everyday Matters in Southeast Archaeology, edited by S. E. Price and P. J. Carr, pp. 95-111. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.
  • 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.
  • Gilmore, Zackary I. 2016. Gathering Places: Hunter-Gatherer History and Community at Florida’s Late Archaic Shell Mounds. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
  • Wallis, Neill J., Zackary I. Gilmore, Ann S. Cordell, Thomas Pluckhahn, Keith Ashley, and Michael Glascock. 2015. The Ceramic Ecology of Florida: Compositional Baselines for Pottery Provenance Studies. Science and Technology of Archaeological Research.
  • Gilmore, Zackary I. 2015. Direct Radiocarbon Dating of Spanish Moss from Early Fiber-Tempered Pottery in the Southeastern U.S. Journal of Archaeological Science 58:1-8.
  • Gilmore, Zackary I. and Jason M. O’Donoughue (editors). 2015. The Archaeology of Events: Cultural Change and Continuity in the Ancient Southeast. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
  • Gilmore, Zackary I. and Jason M. O’Donoughue 2015. Introduction: The Enigma of the Event. In The Archaeology of Events: Cultural Change and Continuity in the Ancient Southeast, edited by Z.I. Gilmore and J.M. O’Donoughue, pp. 1-22. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
  • Gilmore, Zackary I. 2015. Subterranean Histories: Pit Events and Place-Making in Late Archaic Florida. In The Archaeology of Events: Cultural Change and Continuity in the Ancient Southeast, edited by Z.I. Gilmore and J.M. O’Donoughue, pp. 119-140. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
  • Gilmore, Zackary I. 2012. Bone Processing and Subsistence Stress in Late Prehistoric South Texas. In Toyah Phase of Central Texas: Late Prehistoric Economic and Social Processes, edited by Nancy A. Kenmotsu and Doug Boyd. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.
  • Randall, Asa R., Kenneth E. Sassaman, Zackary I. Gilmore, Meggan E. Blessing, and Jason M. O’Donoughue. 2014. Archaic Histories Beyond the Shell “Heap” on the St. Johns River. In Precolumbian Archaeology in Florida: New Approaches to the Appendicular Southeast, edited by A.R. Randall and N.J. Wallis. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.

Technical Reports

  • Sassaman, Kenneth E., Zackary I. Gilmore, and Asa R. Randall. 2011. St. Johns Archaeological Field School 2007-10: Silver Glen Run (8LA1), Technical Report 12. Laboratory of Southeastern Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.