Scholar Profiles
Krista
Church
2007 - 2008 University Scholar
Mentor: John
Krigbaum
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
"Through the USP I hope to gain invaluable research experience in a field that I feel very passionate about. The knowledge and experience in analytical osteology and museum conservation methods gained through this project will help me throughout graduate school and in future research."
Krista is a senior majoring in anthropology and geography, with minors in zoology and classics. She is a Bright Futures Scholar and Academic Scholar. She serves as manager of the Studio/Arts and Crafts Center at UF and volunteers as an elementary school art teacher through the Gainesville Association for the Creative Arts.
Research Description:
Middle Archaic Dental Variation at Tick Island (8VO24): Preparation, Conservation, and Analysis of “New” Osteological Features
The Tick Island Site (8VO24), along the St. Johns River in Volusia County, Florida, is a Middle Archaic (7,000-5,000 BP) shell midden with many associated human burials. Archaeological research suggests that this site may represent the earliest known charnel house in the Archaic Southeast. However, study of the human remains has been limited due to the poor condition of burial features, mainly due to the large number of skeletal concretions that form as a result of leeching calcium carbonate from the shell midden context in which they were interred. Larger scale osteological analysis of Middle Holocene populations is thereby limited due to the preservation bias observed with the Tick Island collection.
A sample of previously unanalyzed concretions that contain cranio-dental remains curated in the Anthropology collections at The Florida Museum of Natural History will be examined for this project using tools used in the preparation and conservation of fossil materials. Prepared material will provide suitable samples to address issues of dental metric and nonmetric variation for this middle Holocene population and permit comparison with other contemporary populations. Data gathered from the dental analysis of the Tick Island material will be integrated into both a local and regional framework of the Archaic Southeast.
The collection’s present condition limits meaningful analysis by researchers both now and in the future. In the presence of current and future legislation concerning human osteological collections in the United States and their study, there is an added sense of urgency in both maintaining and conserving the collection, as well as collecting pertinent osteometric data through analysis of “new” osteological features prepared out of the concretion features. The materials prepared and data collected will contribute to future studies of Archaic bioarchaeology in the Southeastern United States.
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