Zack Gilmore

Upper St. Johns Shell Mound Survey. This long-term field project focuses on documenting and testing the exceptionally well-preserved—and yet virtually unstudied—pre-Columbian shell mound sites along the upper St. Johns River in Central Florida.  Much of the associated fieldwork is conducted in conjunction with the Central Florida Archaeological Field School Program, which aims to provide invaluable hands-on archaeological experience to undergraduate students, while also conducting meaningful research into the histories and cultures of Central Florida’s pre-Columbian indigenous societies.

RCAL Collections Rehabilitation Project. This project consists of ongoing efforts toward documenting the substantial collections housed in the Rollins College Archaeology Lab and bringing them up to contemporary curation standards. The primary goal of these efforts is to maximize the teaching and research value of the collections and to ensure that they are available as a resource for future generations of archaeologists and students. A significant component of the project is the curation internship program, which provides Rollins students an opportunity to gain experience carrying out a wide range of collections management activities. 

Stallings Pottery Project. This NSF-funded project (conducted in collaboration with Dr. Kenneth E. Sassaman, University of Florida) aims to shed light on the scale, permanence, and interactions of Late Archaic Period (ca. 5150–3800 B.P.) Stallings communities, the architects of North America’s oldest pottery technology. Methodologically, it involves the use of neutron activation analysis (NAA) and ceramic petrography to characterize the geochemical composition of hundreds of Stallings pottery sherds and clay reference samples, with the goal of reconstructing the movement of Late Archaic pottery and people along the Savannah River valley of Georgia and South Carolina.