The Archaeology and History of the Native Georgia Tribes


Book Description

The story of Georgia’s Indians from elephant hunts to the European invasion. Spanning 12,000 years, this scientifically accurate and very readable book guides readers through the prehistoric and historic archaeological evidence left by Georgia’s native peoples. It is the only comprehensive, up-to-date, and text-based overview of its kind in print. Drawing on an extensive body of archaeological and historical data, White traces Native American cultural development and accomplishment over the millennia preceding the establishment of Georgia as a colony and state. Each chapter opens with a vivid fictional vignette transporting the reader to a past culture and setting the scene for the narrative that follows. From hunting giant buffalo and elephants to attempts in the 1700s and 1800s to maintain tribal integrity in the face of European and Euro-American violence and threats, White takes the reader on an archaeologically based tour of the land that today is Georgia. Evidence from selected archaeological sites and projects is woven into the narrative, and insets supplement the main text to highlight informative passages from archaeological reports and historical documents. A generous number of photographs, maps, and illustrations aid the reader in identifying artifacts and testify to the artistic abilities of these indigenous peoples of Georgia.




Ocmulgee Archaeology, 1936-1986


Book Description

From 1933 to 1941, Macon was the site of the largest archaeological excavation ever undertaken in Georgia and one of the most significant archaeological projects to be initiated by the federal government during the depression. The project was administered by the National Park Service and funded at times by such government programs as the Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and Civil Works Administration. At its peak in 1955, more than eight hundred laborers were employed in more than a dozen separate excavations of prehistoric mounds and villages. The best-known excavations were conducted at the Macon Plateau site, the area President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed as the Ocmulgee National Monument in 1936. Although a wealth of material was recovered from the site in the 1930s, little provision was made for analyzing and reporting it. Consequently, much information is still unpublished. The sixteen essays in this volume were presented at a symposium to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Ocmulgee National Monument. The symposium provided archaeologists with an opportunity to update the work begun a half-century before and to bring it into the larger context of southeastern history and general advances in archaeological research and methodology. Among the topics discussed are platform mounds, settlement patterns, agronomic practices, earth lodges, human skeletal remains, Macon Plateau culture origins, relations of site inhabitants with other aboriginal societies and Europeans, and the challenges of administering excavations and park development.




An Archaeology and History of a Caribbean Sugar Plantation on Antigua


Book Description

This volume uses archaeological and documentary evidence to reconstruct daily life at Betty’s Hope plantation on the island of Antigua, one of the largest sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It demonstrates the rich information that the multidisciplinary approach of contemporary historical archaeology can offer when assessing the long-term impacts of sugarcane agriculture on the region and its people. Drawing on ten years of research at the 300-year-old site, the researchers uncover the plantation’s inner workings and its connections to broader historical developments in the Atlantic World. Excavations at the Great House reveal similarities to other British colonial sites, and historical records reveal the owners’ involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and in the trade of rum and other commodities. Artifacts uncovered from the slave quarters—ceramic tokens, repurposed bottle glass, and hundreds of Afro-Antiguan pottery sherds—speak to the agency of enslaved peoples in the face of harsh living conditions. Contributors also use ethnographic field data collected from interviews with contemporary farmers, as well as soil analysis to demonstrate how three centuries of sugarcane monocropping created a complicated legacy of soil depletion. Today tourism has long surpassed sugar as Antigua’s primary economic driver. Looking at visitor exhibits and new technologies for exploring and interpreting the site, the volume discusses best practices in cultural heritage management at Betty’s Hope and other locations that are home to contested historical narratives of a colonial past. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series




The Archaeology of Smoking and Tobacco


Book Description

This book discusses how historical archaeology is well positioned to explore the role that tobacco and smoking played in the formation of American identities and cultural practices over a span of three centuries.










Conquistador's Wake


Book Description

"Published with the generous support of Fernbank"--Title page.




King


Book Description

At the time of Spanish contact in AD 1540, the Mississippian inhabitants in north-western Georgia and adjacent portions of Alabama and Tennessee were organized into a number of chiefdoms distributed along the Coosa and Tennessee rivers and their major tributaries. This book is about one such town, known to archaeologists as the King site.




The First Black Archaeologist


Book Description

An inspiring portrait of an overlooked pioneer in Black history and American archaeology The First Black Archaeologist reveals the untold story of a pioneering African American classical scholar, teacher, community leader, and missionary. Born into slavery in rural Georgia, John Wesley Gilbert (1863-1923) gained national prominence in the early 1900s, but his accomplishments are little known today. Using evidence from archives across the U.S. and Europe, from contemporary publications, and from newly discovered documents, this book chronicles, for the first time, Gilbert's remarkable journey. As we follow Gilbert from the segregated public schools of Augusta, Georgia, to the lecture halls of Brown University, to his hiring as the first black faculty member of Augusta's Paine Institute, and through his travels in Greece, western Europe, and the Belgian Congo, we learn about the development of African American intellectual and religious culture, and about the enormous achievements of an entire generation of black students and educators. Readers interested in the early development of American archaeology in Greece will find an entirely new perspective here, as Gilbert was one of the first Americans of any race to do archaeological work in Greece. Those interested in African American history and culture will gain an invaluable new perspective on a leading yet hidden figure of the late 1800s and early 1900s, whose life and work touched many different aspects of the African American experience.




From These Honored Dead


Book Description

Presenting the best current archaeological scholarship on the American Civil War, From These Honored Dead shows how historical archaeology can uncover the facts beneath the many myths and conflicting memories of the war that have been passed down through generations. By incorporating the results of archaeological investigations, the essays in this volume shed new light on many aspects of the Civil War. Topics include soldier life in camp and on the battlefield, defense mechanisms such as earthworks construction, the role of animals during military operations, and a refreshing focus on the conflict in the Trans-Mississippi West. Supplying a range of methods and exciting conclusions, this book displays the power of archaeology in interpreting this devastating period in U.S. history.