Abstract
ABSTRACT Oysters and oyster reefs are important components in the rich and productive southeastern US marsh-estnarine ecosystems. In recent decades, ecological research has shown that these complex systems can be driven by external biotic and abiotic perturbations or internal system dynamics that cause the system to rapidly reorganize into another alternate state or regime. Such shifts may have happened on a much larger scale several thousand years ago along the southeastern coast of North America. Beginning about 4,500 B.P., the coastal Native Americans built complex structures or oyster shell rings on the landward side of the southeastern sea islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The construction of shell rings is believed to symbolize the conversion of nomadic hunter-gatherers to coastal fisherfolk and is considered a pivotal stage in the evolution of preEuropean contact culture in the United States. But, by about 3000 B.P., the shell rings were abandoned and the Native Americans dispersed. ...
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