Abstract
Recent authors suggest shellfish may have been key to the evolution of cooperation among human societies. However, others argue that cooperation may operate at different temporal and spatial scales. We examine shifts in cooperation across the Middle (ca. 300 BC to AD 500) and Late (AD 500 to 1050) Woodland periods among fisher-hunter-gatherers of the west-central Florida peninsula, focusing on the neighboring sites of Crystal River and Roberts Island. The former period is widely understood as an interval marked by greater cooperation, as evidenced by the fluorescence of long-distance exchange and burial mound ceremony. A decline in trade and mortuary ceremony, coupled with settlement dispersal of, are commonly understood to represent greater competition during the Late Woodland. Our research suggests a more complicated picture, with incremental changes in the context and scale of cooperation over the first millennium AD.
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