Circular shell rings along the South Atlantic coast of the United States are vestiges of the earliest sedentary villages in North America, dating to 4500–3000 BP. However, little is known about when Indigenous communities began constructing these shell-ring villages. This article presents data from the Hokfv-Mocvse Shell Ring on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. Although shell rings are often associated with the earliest ceramics in North America, no ceramics were encountered in our excavations at Hokfv-Mocvse, and the only materials recovered were projectile points similar to points found over 300 km inland. Bayesian modeling of radiocarbon dates indicates that the ring was occupied between 5090 and 4735 cal BP (95% confidence), making it the earliest dated shell ring in the region. Additionally, shell geochemistry and oyster paleobiology data suggest that inhabitants were living at the ring year-round and had established institutions at that time to manage oyster fisheries sustainably. Hokfv-Mocvse therefore provides evidence for Indigenous people settling in year-round villages and adapting to coastal environments in the region centuries before the adoption of pottery. The establishment of villages marks a visible archaeological shift toward settling down and occupying island ecosystems on a more permanent basis and in larger numbers than ever before in the region.

Although land loss is among the most profound impacts that settler colonialism had for Indigenous societies across North America, archaeologists rarely study one of the principal colonial mechanisms of land dispossession: allotment. This process forever altered the course of North American history, breaking up collectively held Indigenous lands into lots “owned” by individuals and families while further stressing local Indigenous subsistence patterns, social relations, political organization, and more. Archaeology's long-term, material, and sometimes collaborative vantage stands to offer insights on this process and how it played out for Indigenous peoples in different times and places. As its case study, this article considers the allotment of Mohegan lands in southeastern Connecticut (USA). An archaeology of Mohegan allotment speaks to more than land loss and cultural change. It provides evidence of an enduring and long-term Indigenous presence on the land; of the challenges faced and overcome by Mohegan peoples living through, and with, settler colonialism; and of the nuances of Indigenous-colonial archaeological records. This study also shows the importance of Indigenous and collaborative archaeologies for shedding new light on these challenging but important archaeological traces.

The morphological characteristics of starch granules preserved on ancient ground stone tools can reveal which plant species were processed and consumed and even infer tool function. Bedrock metates are commonly associated with the processing of localized seasonal resources, providing potential evidence for past human lifeways, including foods collected and processed, social gatherings, settlement patterns, land investment, and territorial behavior. In contrast to ground stone artifacts preserved in a buried context that have been studied extensively, limited starch research has been conducted on the potential for environmental contamination of open-air bedrock mortars and metates exposed to natural erosional elements. This project examines the residue samples of bedrock metates from three archaeological sites in southern Oregon in the United States to compare the starch yields of extraneous material cleaned from the grinding surface to those extracted from interstitial matrices deeper within the bedrock. Significantly greater number of starch granules were recovered from deep within the cracks and crevices than from the surface. Our study suggests that environmental contamination can be managed if separate surface and control samples are collected and analyzed in conjunction with the interstitial samples. Examining the potential for environmental contamination on exposed grinding surfaces is crucial for confidence in starch granule results and improving our understanding of human dietary behavior.