The “how” and “why” of social change—particularly the apparently rapid, regional transformations in settlement patterns, social organization, and a host of other variables that archaeologists usually recognize as the boundaries of temporal periods or phases—is, as Jessica A. Jenkins writes, “one of the most enduring questions in the social sciences” (p. 1). One such period of large-scale social reorganization is the Middle to Late Woodland period transition (approximately AD 500–700) along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. Jenkins addresses this period of change in An Archaeology of Woodland Transformation using the production and circulation of ceramic vessels to assess the diverse and shifting identities and relationships of communities in the Lower Suwannee River Valley and neighboring areas of Florida and the interior US Southeast. This study explores the ways in which communities intentionally remake their social worlds, often in times of crisis, when the status quo no longer operates or is incapable of accommodating changing conditions.

This book is organized into six chapters, the first of which introduces the theoretical framework of social movements as purposeful interventions that generate social change. This framework emphasizes the importance of shared identities and robust networks of interaction in sustaining transformational social movements. Chapter 2 synthesizes Woodland period social change across the eastern United States. These semicontinental-scale changes and their localized manifestations frame the Woodland period transformations observed in the Lower Suwannee and its surrounding coastal region. Chapter 3 takes us even further into the local particulars of the Lower Suwannee, outlining the histories of sites sampled in this research, the various ceramic traditions of the Woodland period Gulf Coast, and the way that data discussed in the following two chapters will be evaluated. Chapters 4 and 5 cover those data, assessing potters’ identities through techno-functional and stylistic analyses of ceramic vessels and examining ceramic provenance using neutron activation analysis (NAA), respectively. Finally, chapter 6 brings these data and interpretations together to outline a history of Middle to Late Woodland period transformation in the Lower Suwannee.

This book benefits greatly from roughly two decades of archaeological research in the Lower Suwannee by Jenkins and her colleagues at the University of Florida, providing a detailed account of changing settlement patterns and ecological conditions in which to situate the potting communities of practice and interaction networks documented in this study. The Middle Woodland period in the Lower Suwanee seems to have been fairly orderly, with the region divided into two interacting but ultimately distinct primary communities, each represented by its own potting practices, and each associated with its own civic-ceremonial center and broader regional connections. In keeping with the framing of transformative social change, the Late Woodland transition was a dramatic rupture, with the adoption of a new religious ideology associated with Weeden Island culture and ceremonialism, along with both a widespread shift in potting practices and population dispersal to numerous, smaller settlements.

These dramatic shifts in pottery production, settlement patterns, and religious practices in the Late Woodland period are attributed to a social movement aimed at addressing overlapping crises and stressors, both mundane (intra- and intervillage social tensions) and cosmic (sea-level change that may have undermined religious orthodoxies). I agree with Jenkins’s identification of social and ideological tensions as drivers of change. Archaeologists in the region commonly discuss the ways in which disparate groups of people were integrated into larger collectives, but how and why these social collectives “failed” and either disintegrated or needed to be reorganized is just as anthropologically important as how and why they emerged in the first place. On that note, I would have appreciated more consideration of the potential for failure in Jenkins’s account of transformative social movements themselves. Although Jenkins notes that shared identity helps to define which events require intervention, the appropriate methods of intervention, and desired outcomes, how can we evaluate whether those intended or desired outcomes were achieved? This seems like a major concern within a framework of intentional social change, though the hindsight provided by archaeology makes intent a difficult thing to grasp. Nonetheless, considering the potential for failure is important for understanding the various contradictions, compromises, and constraints that may have blunted or altered the course of a past social movement.

Jenkins has produced an intriguing study that will doubtlessly push many archaeologists working in the Southeast and along the Florida Gulf Coast—including me—to rethink how we view social change in the region. With this book, and the recent studies it builds on, the Middle to Late Woodland period Gulf Coast seems particularly dynamic and “eventful,” with increasingly refined chronologies, robustly documented networks of interaction, and detailed local histories, allowing us to approach enduring questions of anthropological importance at an impressive level of resolution.