Archaeologists frequently make the point that artifacts can convey certain kinds of important information, but artifacts found in context can convey so much more information.

What does this distinction mean and why is it important?

What, after all, is context?

In the glossary on this website, context is defined as:

the location or placement of an artifact, feature, or site, including its relationship to other artifacts, features, and the surrounding environment. Context includes the soil around archaeological materials. Sometimes, the context of artifacts is more informative than the artifacts!

Consider a particular kind of stone tool, which we can date to say about 4000 BC based on the material it’s made from and the shape and style of its form. Say we find it with some pottery and other artifacts that we can date to much later, say about AD 500. And that layer is undisturbed, perhaps a midden layer that formed from trash disposed around houses in a village, with no other materials that are so old as the hypothetical stone tool in that midden.

Now, if archaeologists just have the stone tool, perhaps collected from the surface of a plowed field, they think: there’s a 6000-year-old occupation in this spot. (Occupation here refers to a period of use of a particular place on the landscape.)

If however, archaeologists find the stone tool when carefully excavating the midden, recording how undisturbed that layer is, what do they think?

The Shroud of Turin, from the official website.

Artifacts are often taken out of context. Consider the objects in an art museum, say in Atlanta, like a pottery vase from ancient Egypt or a sculpture from a Medieval French church. They are both artifacts and art objects. And they are objects no longer in context, since they’re displayed in a building far from where they were found (or abandoned).

Consider the Shroud of Turin, which is scheduled to be on display in Turin in spring 2010. Writes Victor L. Simpson of the Associated Press, and published in the Washington Post:

At least 1 million reservations from around the world have already poured in to secure three to five minutes to admire the cloth that has fascinated pilgrims and scientists alike, organizers of the April 10-May 23 showing told a news conference in Rome on Wednesday.

The Shroud is an artifact, art object, and “revered by many Christians as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth but described by some as a medieval forgery,” as Simpson notes. He says the earliest secure record of the shroud date to 1354.

The Shroud is being displayed in Turin (Torino). Is it in context? Login and discuss….

Georgia’s official copy of the Declaration of Independence was made with iron gall ink on parchment. It was made in response to a Congressional order made on January 18th, 1777.

So what does this mean: “iron gall ink on parchment?”

Parchment is a pretty common term. Of course, there is parchment paper, which you may have seen and used, but real parchment is made from animal skin (hide). Unlike leather, the skin is not tanned, but instead is treated with lime. Fine quality parchment is called vellum. The Wikipedia has a detailed entry on parchment.

How about iron gall ink? It’s not common these days! Of course, ink is becoming less common the more we use keyboards and make PDFs that remain forever digital!

Iron gall ink is also called iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink. The name for this ink comes from the two main components, iron and galls.

Inks, of course, are fluids containing pigments and/or dyes.

Iron is easy—it’s a metal, common to nails and other everyday items.

So, what are galls? Galls are round swellings on plants that are abnormal growths that the plant makes in response to damage, often made by insects. Oak marble galls are caused by gall wasps, which in this case lay their eggs in tender buds of particular species of oaks. The oak reacts by growing a lot of tissue to encapsulate this invasion. These galls are usually very round, hence the term “marble.”

Iron gall ink was the standard writing and drawing liquid used for hundreds of years across Europe, and beyond. Iron gall ink was used by Leonardo Da Vinci, and for the Dead Sea Scrolls; Van Gogh used it, and so did Bach. Indeed, it was the standard for public documents in the Colonies at the time of the Revolution.

Iron gall ink was preferred because of its longevity. The ink would bond with the parchment, rather than merely sit on the surface, like some other pigmented liquids. Also, the ink reacts to oxygen and becomes darker over the next few days after it is used.

To make iron gall ink, you start with two different liquids. The chemistry of iron gall ink is rather complicated, and best left to experts (for example, here). Briefly, one liquid is an iron solution, which can even be made by putting carpentry nails in vinegar. The other is an oak extraction, commonly made from oak marble galls, which have the high levels of tannin that are critical to the chemistry of the ink. When mixed, iron ions reacted with the tannic acid to make the ink (mostly). Other chemicals are added to make the liquid less acidic and more stable. Gum arabic has been commonly added to iron gall ink preparations to make the pigments stay in solution. It comes from the sap of acacia trees, native to northern Africa.

Are you surprised that it took two different trees to make the ink used for the documents of Colonial America? What else do you find interesting about “iron gall ink on parchment?”

Online materials

Downloadable PDF of the Federal archives copy of the Declaration of Independence….

Information on the Georgia copy of the Declaration of Independence in the State Archives….

To make iron gall ink….

An international working group called INTCAL has announced an updated radiocarbon calibration curve. As Michael Balter notes in ScienceNOW online:

To calibrate the period extending from the present to about 12,000 years ago, the team has used thousands of overlapping tree-ring segments from the Northern Hemisphere, which provide a very accurate check of raw radiocarbon dates and how much they must be corrected. But for dates older than the available tree-ring record, the researchers had to turn to several other, less-precise data sets on ancient CO2 levels, including fossil foraminifers (single-celled organisms that secrete calcium carbonate) and corals.

The new curve is called IntCal09, and is available here.

The technical article, published in the December 2009 issue of the journal Radiocarbon, is here (lead author is Reimer), but is not free.

Full reference

Reimer, Paula J., Mike G.L. Baillie, E. Bard, Alex Bayliss, J. Warren Beck, Paul G. Blackwell, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Caitlin E. Buck, G.S. Burr, R. Lawrence Edwards, Michael Friedrich, Pieter M. Grootes, Thomas P. Guilderson, Irka Hajdas, T.J. Heaton, Alan G. Hogg, Konrad A. Hughen, Klaus Felix Kaiser, Bernd Kromer, F.G. McCormac, Sturt W. Manning, Ron W. Reimer, D.A. Richards, J.R. Southon, Sahra Talamo, Chris S.M. Turney, Johannes van der Plicht, and Constanze E. Weyhenmeyer. 2009. IntCal09 and Marine09 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves, 0–50,000 Years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51:1111–50.

On 27 December 2009, the online version of Charleston’s Post and Courier published a fascinating story by Tony Bartelme titled “Research on Hunley spurs new discoveries.”

The Hunley is of course the H.L. Hunley Confederate Civil War submarine, which sunk near Charleston in February 1864, and was found by a diver in 1995. The approximately forty-foot submarine was raised in 2000. Since then, its preservation has been a major problem.

As Bartelme notes:

Iron and seawater have a complex relationship, one that sometimes resembles a love story with an unhappy ending.
Put a piece of iron, such as a submarine, in the ocean, and iron and water begin to merge, with iron swapping its ions with chloride ions in the seawater. As long as the iron stays under water, this relationship is stable, and the iron stays well preserved.
But if you remove the iron and expose it the air, the romance turns bad; new and often violent reactions begin as the iron oxidizes. After being pulled from the sea, old cannonballs have been known to spontaneously combust.
On the Hunley, metal shavings collected during the removal of some rivets got so hot they burned plastic bags. Had the sub’s conservators removed the Hunley from the sea and left it alone, the sub would be a pile of dust today, Mardikian said.

Conservators are now using a subcritical reactor, which acts like a pressure cooker to super-pressurize water, and improve preservation by reducing corrosion. Despite the name, there is no radioactivity involved in using the subcritical reactor.

Instead, it creates pressures 50 times higher than what might be found in the open air, and this intense pressure causes materials to react differently. The boiling point for water, for instance, shoots from 212 degrees Fahrenheit to 392 degrees.

Read the full story by Bartelme by clicking here.

The Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has a downloadable sixteen-page booklet dated November 2007, titled Preserving Georgia’s Historic Cemeteries, that you may find interesting.

Download or review this booklet by visiting this webpage.

Or click here to access the booklet PDF directly.

This booklet compliments the book, Grave Intentions: A Comprehensive Guide to Preserving Historic Cemeteries in Georgia, by Christine Van Voorhies. This book is available in print only, and cannot be downloaded as a PDF. Grave Intentions is a small, easy-to-read guidebook with, as the HPD website notes:

…great information on cleaning up a graveyard and tombstones, getting access to gravesites, funding your project, handling threats to graves, and legal issues.

Deptford Cord Marked sherd photo from the University of Georgia’s website “Georgia Indian Pottery Site.”

Archaeologists deal with taxonomies, and sometimes help develop them.

A taxonomy is a system for classification, and in science is usually rank-based. A ranked hierarchy begins with the most general characteristics—for example, plant versus animal, and keeps becoming more specific.

Perhaps the best known taxonomic system in science is the Linnaean system for classifying living organisms. In fact, the Encyclopedia of Life is an online presentation of known organisms, along with their taxonomic classification. The EOL was recently discussed on this website.

Another classification system for living organisms is cladistics. Cladistics focuses on evolutionary relationships, and thus generates descent trees, rather like a family tree.

An August 10th 2009 article in the New York Times by Carol Kaesuk Yoon called “Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World” argues that taxonomic classification is rather esoteric these days.

Ms. Yoon notes that anthropologists have studied classification systems used by peoples from around the world. She writes:

Cecil Brown, an anthropologist at Northern Illinois University who has studied folk taxonomies in 188 languages, has found that people recognize the same basic categories repeatedly, including fish, birds, snakes, mammals, “wugs” (meaning worms and insects, or what we might call creepy-crawlies), trees, vines, herbs and bushes.

Dr. Brown’s finding would be considerably less interesting if these categories were clear-cut depictions of reality that must inevitably be recognized. But tree and bush are hardly that, since there is no way to define a tree versus a bush. The two categories grade insensibly into one another. Wugs, likewise, are neither an evolutionarily nor ecologically nor otherwise cohesive group. Still, people repeatedly recognize and name these oddities.

Archaeologists classify pottery and other material culture remains. Simple taxonomies are useful that give a name to, for example, pottery with a particular decoration and other physical characteristics. That way we know what is meant when someone says, for example, Deptford Check Stamped or Deptford Cord Marked.

Artifact classification is perhaps more subjective than the common categories Dr. Brown has identified in many cultures, because not infrequently archaeologists get into heated discussions about the “right” way to classify some artifact types.

For discussion: is this kind of classification system in the Linnaean style or does it more closely resemble a cladistic classification system?

Bottle photograph from Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website.

If you’re interested in historic bottles, you may enjoy browsing the Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. The website aids visitors in finding out how old a bottle is, and what type it is. The website is limited to bottles made in the USA, and to some extent, Canada, between about 1800 and the 1950s. That’s still a lot of bottles, and some major changes in bottle making technology!

Why, you might wonder, is this information presented via a website, and not a more traditional printed publication? The website states:

In order to answer or address questions related to the dating and typing a bottle, a lot of information must be presented in a way that is accessible to the user of this site. A major benefit of using the internet to accomplish this task is the ability to use hundreds (or thousands) of illustrative pictures that would not be possible (or affordable) if published in book form. Another benefit of the internet is the relative ease of revising and/or adding information to a website as corrected or new information becomes available. As soon as the information is added it is available to everyone immediately; an attribute not possible with a printed publication. Finally, the ability of the internet to easily reach more potential users than any other communication medium makes it the most powerful tool of education and enlightenment available today.

You might especially enjoy perusing scanned pages of the 1906 Illinois Glass Company Illustrated Catalogue and Price List. Thumbnails of the scans are on this webpage.

The website is sponsored by the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Bureau of Land Management of the US Department of the Interior. Click here to visit it.

Want to learn about the decorations on prehistoric pottery from Georgia? Try the University of Georgia’s website “Georgia Indian Pottery Site.” The current version was developed this year, and improves on the previous version, which was begun in 2005. Originally, it was essentially a digital version of the SGA’s Early Georgia from 1999, volume 27, issue 1, which is currently out of print.

You can look up pottery types by general decorative style (e.g., punctated, check stamped), or by specific name (e.g., Kasita red filmed, Deptford cord marked).

This handy and informative website is worth taking time to explore.

Editor’s Note

Back in late March 2009, GAAS and SGA member Dick Brunelle issued a challenge to thesga.org readers. He had read a January Weekly Ponder on a Copeland-Inglis brick found in an Atlanta brick street, and responded by asking who made the brick he had photographed at Hills and Dales, the Callaway family home in LaGrange, which had “LACLEDE KING” stamped on it. As a tease, he noted: The brick is more closely related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition than it is to covered bridges in Georgia. Member Jim D’Angelo was the only one to log in and comment on these brick controversies, among other things noting that he has a biography of John Randolph Copeland (1863-1935), partner in Copeland-Inglis Brick company. Now, Mr. Brunelle reveals the whoe story behind that enigmatic brick….

The answer…

Laclede Fire Brick Company as it appeared in 1854. On the hill behind the plant, can be seen the old Sublette mansion and nearby buildings of the sulphur springs resort. Clay was mined between the plant and the mansion.

The Birthplace of the Laclede King Brick

Bridge builder Horace King practiced his craft up and down the Chattahoochee River before and after his emancipation from slavery. The Townsend Truss structures he specialized in building required solid piers of durable material. Knowing he headed a family enterprise, brick making did not seem beyond possibility for this one time resident of LaGrange, Georgia.

At least, this is what I thought when I spotted the Laclede King brick at the beautiful estate of Hills and Dales in LaGrange. However, a search of Horace King family members did not come up with anyone named Laclede. Casting my net over the Internet, I fished up one Pierre Laclede Liquest.

We find that this enterprising man, a native of France, came to New Orleans in 1755. Soon, he dropped the Pierre from his name and his associates dropped the Liquest. This sort of name dropping was common among the early French in Louisiana. Laclede married an unattached woman in New Orleans, who was also enterprising and had accumulated money trading furs and other goods. She had previously been married to Auguste Rene Chouteau, and her son Auguste was now Laclede’s stepson. To further complicate an already confusing family relationship, stepson Auguste Chouteau had a half brother named Pierre. Some surmise he was a son of Laclede, but he was called Pierre Chouteau.

Laclede supposedly obtained trading rights from the last French governor for all the territory along the Missouri River. He and his stepson Auguste Chouteau established a trading post that Laclede named St Louis in April 1764 in honor of King Louis IX. Between the time he first set foot there, at the end of 1763, and the time of his death in 1788, Laclede had built up his name enough to bequeath it to things both material and political. As we now suspect, this includes bricks.

But, how can the name on our brick be close to Lewis and Clark? This clue was mainly intended to get the ponderer in the correct geographical area. However, both Chouteaus could not get any closer to William Clark than they did in September of 1797. Clark had been across the river trying to gather information to help out his older brother George Rogers Clark, who was in deep doo-doo for spending too much government money embarrassing the British while venturing into their territory.

Feeling the urge to party, William went to St Louis to scope out the town. There, he had a ball (literally) at Pierre Chouteau’s place with “all the fine girls and buckish Gentleman.” Now that they were drinking buddies, Clark would not forget his new friends when he came back across the river years later with Meriwether Lewis. The Spanish governor would not allow the Corps of Discovery to come ashore, but did accept a courtesy visit from Clark, who used the occasion to affirm his friendship in an aside with Auguste Chouteau. Meriwether Lewis used what influence he had to get Pierre Chouteau appointed Agent of Indian Affairs for Upper Louisiana in 1804.

The Chouteau brothers had considerable economic and political clout to go with their immense knowledge of the country and inhabitants of the Missouri and points west. It would take all of this to compete with the companies and political entities trying to control trade with the Indian nations. In turn, the Chouteau brothers made alliances with groups and individuals they deemed most capable to meet the challenges. One of these was William L. Sublette, previously a competitor. He became “their man on the ground” to deal with the most dangerous situations. Bill Sublette used shrewd strategy and good business ability, along with superior frontier skills, to stay alive and come out ahead.

After he gave up mountain man life, it would be Bill who would become owner of the ground that would one day yield the clay for our Laclede brick. Surprisingly, Bill aspired to create his own little utopia close to the city of St Louis, rather than live in Big Sky country. He chose a pleasing valley with a sulphur spring and “a river runs through it.” The “clear crystal stream” was called “River Des Peres”. This piece of property just happened to once belong to the husband of Auguste and Pierre’s sister Victoire Chouteau, Charles Gratiot, who had received it in a Spanish land grant of about 8000 acres.

In 1835, Bill had several log cabins and a large stone manor built on his 779 acre arcadia sanctuary. Sublette immediately put into play a gentleman farmer economy; exploiting natural resources of the property. Along with agricultural, livestock, and lumbering operations, mining of coal and clay was started. As it turned out, the clay was found to be the best in the country for making firebrick.

Gratiot’s son Paul had a fire brick kiln as early as 1837. We do not know, however, if Bill Sublette himself did anything but mine the clay. Soon, Bill’s arcadia had a menagerie of Wild West animals and a sulphur springs health resort for 60 boarders. Sadly, the healing waters did not restore health to Bill during an illness; so, he sought help in the East, but died in a Pittsburg, Pennsylvania hotel during his travels, on July 23, 1845.

William L. Sublette’s earthly remains were brought from Pittsburg and interred on his estate.

Soon, another utopia seeker was on the move in the person of Etienne Cabet. A French experimenter in communal living, he coined the word communisme; which became communism. Called the Icarian Movement, he lead his followers to found a colony in America; first in the Texas Red River Valley, then to the recently vacated haven of Brigham Young in Nauvoo, Illinois. Alas, Arcadia was not found there. The fragmented Icarians that still followed Cabet moved on to St Louis; but Cabet died at the end of 1856.

The remaining Icarians struggled on and in two years bought Sublette’s place, which was then on the block. Ironically, unhealthy conditions at the health resort were one reason that the colony to disbanded. Even more ironic, Bill Sublette’s mortal remains could not stay because of the demand for clay around the cemetery that contained them. Forced out at the point of a shovel, Bill’s remains were moved to Bellefontaine Cemetery in St Louis city in 1868.

Resting on 80 acres of land close by, Laclede Fire Brick Manufacturing Company was inhaling clay from the old Sublette Estate and exhaling an array of brick products. Thus, neither William Sublette nor Etienne Cabet found a final resting place in that place first called Sulphur Springs, then Cheltenham, and finally Dogtown.

However, one brick made from the clay of that place rests in the garden walk of a little arcadia created by the Callaway family in LaGrange, Georgia, where it proclaims to all that take notice: Laclede Brick is King!

Usually when you hear the phrase “old money,” the speaker is referring to people and families with established, long-held, inherited wealth.

Some old money, however, is just that, money from long ago.

I spotted this nineteenth-century five-dollar bill in a display of old money in the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

The long-extinct Ocmulgee Bank issued this $5 note in what looks to me like 1859.

The picture in the middle, above the word Ocmulgee, shows a wagon-load of cotton being delivered to a dock. In the background is a steamboat. I assume the artist was thinking of the Ocmulgee River, which flows through Macon. Area farms shipped cotton downriver, so this vignette reflects what truly happened in Macon.

In mid-1857, the US suffered a downturn in the economy that is often described as a panic. The South, however, suffered less than other regions of the country, because the cotton crop provided sufficient revenue to stabilize the regional economy, although there was considerable commercial distress. Nevertheless, four of nineteen Georgia banks failed during the panic.

Now, of course, banks in the USA do not issue their own currency. A federal banking act that took effect in July 1866 made it too costly for banks to continue to use non-federal currency in the USA, making bills like this historical documents.

Read more about the Panic of 1857 in Wikipedia here, or about currency in general here.

Before there was blacktop, some streets were paved with stone or brick. East of Piedmont Park, in Atlanta, is a street that still is paved with bricks. It’s named Cooledge Avenue, and is marked on the map below.

Most of the bricks are plain, but a few are not. This paving brick has letters molded into its surface. They say COPELAND-INGLIS arched across the top of the brick, and B HAM ALA in a straight line across the bottom, when the brick is held sideways. Apparently, Copeland-Inglis shipped bricks across the Southeast. They were used in Chattanooga’s freight depot in the late 1800s. They also were used in Tampa, in the driveway of a 1891 building that was once a hotel, and is now a museum on the University of Tampa campus.

I find this quite interesting. Bricks are heavy, making them relatively expensive to ship. However, the best clays for bricks are not available everywhere. Still, it’s very curious that Birmingham, Alabama, bricks were shipped across the Southeast in the late 1800s.

This does leave one question: why were streets paved?

The Edgefield scraper is a diagnostic tool of the Early Archaic period that is geographically distributed throughout much of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida. It is essentially a unifacial hafted tool with a bifacially worked side-notched base that typically co-occurs with side-notched points of the Big Sandy/Bolen/Taylor group (Goodyear et al. 1980), but is sometimes found with corner-notched points of the Kirk type (Sassaman et al. 2002:60-62). Though widely distributed within the range of occurrence, Edgefields are closely linked with chert sources. The association of this unusual tool form with notched Early Archaic points has led to much discussion and speculation about their respective roles.

Figure 1. Edgefield scrapers from Georgia, showing size variation and degrees of resharpening.

Having begun my career with an ardent interest in Early Archaic tools, I have engaged in my share of this discourse. And so it was, while at an artifact identification event in the spring of 2007, I overheard typologist Lloyd Schroder (author of The Anthropology of Florida Points and Blades) use the term “double-edged Edgefield scraper” to describe Early Archaic beveled points. Upon hearing this, I fairly spun around and went to query him further about his description. My interest lay not in the newness of the idea. Quite to the contrary, it was the familiarity of the phrase that caught my attention. As I explained to Schroder, I had used this exact phrase some years earlier.

Figure 2. Small Edgefield scraper, Oglethorpe County,
Georgia. Material is Piedmont chert/jasper.

Back at home, I rifled through my files and found the surviving copy of a short, unpublished document that I wrote about 1989 (as witnessed by the yellowed paper and faded dot-matrix print), in which I compared Edgefield scrapers and beveled projectile points. Having shelved the “double-edged Edgefield scraper” concept after it met with nearly unanimous contempt at the time, my conversation with Schroder convinced me it was time to go public with it. Except for the omission of one completely erroneous sentence, the original document reads as follows:

While looking through the Early Archaic material from the Wallace Reservoir Survey recently, it was pointed out to me that the flawless beveling and near-perfect trapezoidal cross-section of some of the side- and corner-notched ppks seem to be of intentional design; I disagreed with the idea that they were beveled during initial manufacture, and I still hold this opinion. I have, however, modified my opinion concerning the nature and purpose of such beveling. For quite some time now I have been fascinated by primitive woodworking tools and methods; one particular item of interest has been the so-called Edgefield Scraper. I have examined archaeological specimens; manufactured, hafted and used reproductions and have been impressed with the results. While most specimens are unifacial except for the haft area, I have seen some that are made bifacially—with a technically beautiful flat ventral face, and the characteristically steep-edged dorsal face. While examining a bifacial specimen from the Wallace Reservoir material, I was struck by the amazing resemblance between the working edge of this scraper (and upon re-examination, many others) and the beveled edges of many Early Archaic ppks. It appears that there is a clear relationship between these two tool types that extends beyond mere haft-area similarities: without available stratigraphic information, one can only say that one is a technological adaptation of the other. After much discussion about the purpose of Early Archaic blade-beveling (“spinners,” resharpening economy, etc.), it seems that—at least as an added feature of economic resharpening, if not by intentional design—some of these ppks functioned as double-edged Edgefield scrapers as well as projectile tips. This idea is further supported by the occasional occurrence of dulled ppks of this type. It is probable, though, that points used for woodworking would have been resharpened for service as projectile tips soon after the woodworking task was finished, thus accounting for their relative scarcity. The versatility of the beveled point as a ppk, generalized knife, and woodworking scraper make it an ideal field tool for mobile hunters. Use of both edges would require bilateral resharpening, thus maintaining the relative symmetry needed for the tool’s primary function as a projectile point—symmetry which is noticeably absent from the task-specific Edgefield scraper. As a final note, it is interesting that, for a change, we have an opportunity to examine a tool in its combined form—the beveled ppk—and compare it with its task-specific derivative, the Edgefield scraper.

Some recent thoughts: I still adhere to all but one of the observations expressed in my original piece. This exception has to do with beveling during initial manufacture. Beveling of Early Archaic points reflects more than an economy of resharpening, and results in a specific type of utility. I now feel that beveling was often anticipated during manufacture, and is clearly evident in utilized late-stage formal preforms such as Cobb’s Triangular and Stanfield blades.

Regarding the origin of Edgefield scrapers, they sometimes occur on sites containing mixed Transitional Paleoindian and Early Archaic artifacts. Although they are not found on pure Dalton sites, technologically similar hafted tools do occur. It is postulated that Edgefield scrapers may be derived from Dalton flake-blank preforms with bifacially shaped bases (cf. Waggoner and Jones 2007, figure 9).

Edgefield scrapers are generally regarded as being heftier than contemporaneous projectile point forms. This is sometimes cited as evidence for a major distinction between these tool forms, implying that a beveled point cannot be analogous to an Edgefield scraper because the latter is always larger. Though far less common than the larger versions, small Edgefields are found that are about the same size as projectile points, indicating a need for a tool in this size range. Although small numbers of such tools exist, the implication is that small Edgefield scrapers are essentially redundant in the presence of beveled points of similar size.

Figure 3. Two views of replicated and hafted Edgefield scrapers by the author (bottom plan view; top side view).

References

Goodyear, Albert C., James L. Michie, and Barbara Purdy
1980 The Edgefield Scraper: A Distributional Study of an Early Archaic Stone Tool from the Southeastern U.S. Paper presented at the 37th Annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference, New Orleans.

Sassaman, Kenneth E., I. Randolph Daniel, Jr., and Christopher R. Moore
2002 G. S. Lewis East: Early and Late Archaic Occupations along the Savannah River, Aiken County, South Carolina. Savannah River Archaeological Research Papers, no. 12.

Waggoner, James C., and Scott Jones
2007 Validating “Daltonite” Within the Greater Classification of Lithic Resources in the Interior Coastal Plain. Early Georgia 35(1):45-62.

Click to see larger.

New South Associates, Inc., recently performed excavations at the Berry Creek site (9MO487) in Monroe County, Georgia, for Georgia Power Company. Many of the ceramics in the artifact assemblage were identified as representative of the Swift Creek culture, and several ground- and chipped-stone tools were recovered. One artifact of note, identified as a plummet stone, is an oblong ground granite object with one grooved end. Jack Hranicky (2004) suggests that plummets may be pendants, net weights, bolas, or status symbols. He also references Warren Moorehead’s 1917 work, which lists up to 22 possibilities ranging from handheld tool applications to ceremonial or decorative purposes.

If anyone has further information on similar artifacts in the central Georgia region, please contact Scott Morris (smorris@newsouthassoc.com).

This year the GARS Archaeology Month event was a public archaeology day at the Creekside Rock shelter located on the historic Elisha Winn property in Dacula, on May 3 and 4. The site was first identified, recorded, and excavated by GARS in 2006. Although contending with intermittent showers and poor turnout on Saturday, two large slabs of roof fall were broken up and removed by GARS members. With clearing skies on Sunday, a number of families showed up with about 10 children aged 6-13. The aim was to involve them in the excavation of a 1 x 1-m x 10 cm level from the very back of the shelter where there was as little as 21 cm of ceiling clearance.

The munchkins were just the right size for the task. They each took a turn filling a bucket and then taking it to the screen. One young man was fortunate enough to come up with an Early to Middle Archaic (8000-5000 B.P.), Pine Tree projectile point base (Figure 1)! The point was recovered at about 15 cm below surface. Everyone gathered around as Jim D’Angelo explained how the broken point likely was tossed to the back of the shelter several thousand years ago when its owner sat by the creek hafting a new point to his atlatl dart.

Figure 1. Michael holding projectile point he excavated at the Creekside Rock Shelter.

Figure 2. 1776 Spanish 2 Reale coin recovered at the Fort Daniel site.

GARS had recovered Lamar pottery and a French trade bead from the shelter in 2006-2007. The finds suggest that occupation of the site may span as much as 7,500 years, bracketed by the Early Archaic and Contact periods. The answer, as we know, lies below.

Within the week, one of GARS’ members, Greg Beavers, was working at the Fort Daniel site (9GW623) and recovered a 1776 silver coin (Figure 2)! This was in the plow zone in an area where we are excavating a hearth feature that we think is located within the fort and another feature that is probably the south stockade wall trench adjacent to the hearth. Research suggests that the 2 Reale coin was minted in Mexico and, until the practice was made illegal by the Federal government in 1857, was used as tender in the colonies and then the states. The well-worn appearance of this coin indicates that it was in circulation from 1776 until the time that it was dropped at Fort Daniel, sometime, most likely, between 1795 and 1815.

Figure 3. Scouts from Troop 594 raising “Star Spangled Banner” over Fort Daniel (photo courtesy Robert Coffey).

The land on which Fort Daniel is situated is for sale as are two tracts on the east and west sides (for a total of about 15 acres). In recent months, the Friends of Fort Daniel (FFD) committee has been organized to find ways to save the site from development. Members of the committee, including its chair, are descendents of Major General Allen Daniel or the militiamen who were stationed at the fort. The Georgia Piedmont Land Trust (formerly the Gwinnett Open Land Trust) has enthusiastically agreed to head up the effort to find a purchaser for the 15 acres, and the Archaeological Conservancy has also agreed to help where they can. Other members of the committee include representatives of GARS, the Gwinnett Historical Society, the National Society United States Daughters of 1812, the Gwinnett Preservation Board, and the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. Garrett Silliman, representing the Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists, has also been sitting in.

The effort to save 9GW623 includes raising public awareness through public and executive presentations, developing a special use plan for the site, and working to purchase the tracts including and surrounding the site. To officially kick off the effort, GARS and FFD hosted a public archaeology day, BBQ, and flag raising ceremony on Flag Day, June 14. The event was by invitation only and approximately 60 persons attended. A local Boy Scout Troop, including some scouts who have been working on a merit badge at the site, led the flag ceremony. A replica of the 1794-1818 “Star Spangled Banner” was flown over the site, on a crafted pine flag pole, for the first time since it would have last been raised over the fort about 193 years ago (Figure 3).

Initial view of dugout canoe in 1970.

In late December 1970, I assisted the Broward County Archaeological Society in the location, recovery, and restoration of an abandoned, twelve and a half foot long, cypress dugout canoe. It became the primary display in the small museum the group maintained for public education.

My friend Keith Hunt asked the Sunday school class he was teaching where they would like to go for a field trip. Several parks and historic locations were suggested. One boy named John raised his hand and said, “I know where there is a lost dugout canoe in the woods.”

At the end of class Keith asked John more about it. John said a few times in the past he tried shortcuts through the woods to get to school, but it had been over two years since he last went that way. Keith asked John if he could find it again, and if he would. He said he enjoyed exploring the swampy forest and agreed. Keith called me about one o’clock and we met John and his mother about three o’clock. By four we were at the canoe. It was about three hundred yards east of Andrews Avenue and about a hundred yards south of the canal that separates Pompano Beach from Fort Lauderdale, west of Dixie Highway and the railroad, and north of Cypress Road. The canal was a drainage canal for flood control from the Everglades. It was a river modified into a canal in the early 1900s. A wall of dredged sand fill on the south bank helped isolate access to the area. The ground varied from mushy, to water-filled areas, with very little dry ground in the area. The trees and ground vegetation were thick and difficult to walk through. Visibility was up to about fifty feet, maybe.

The canoe was covered with several inches of light green, thick, wet moss on some top surfaces. On one side there was a delicate fern about eight inches tall growing out of the wood. The canoe shape had a specific bow wedge at one end and a blunt, lower, stern at the other end. The bow had a vertical front edge to cut the water and kept a rounded deck shape at the top. The sides were slightly lower and about two to three inches thick. The walls became thicker closer to the bottom. The stern was not finished on the outside. It also had decay holes in the direction of the trees’ core at the stern. The canoe measured twelve feet six inches long and was pointed northnortheast toward the canal. About ten or more feet to the southwest was an obvious section of the same tree. It was about six feet long. From the far end of that segment it was only about ten feet west to the tree trunk. The trunk was about two feet high.

The condition of the ground at the canoe was interesting. There was an almost circular depression about ten feet across directly under the entire canoe. We did not think this was formed naturally as there was solid dirt under the other segment of the tree. We speculated how the canoe was to get to the river a hundred yards away. One line of thought was if a ditch were dug from the canoe to the river, it could be floated out. After tearing down the final wall at the river, water would flow to the canoe in the depression. It can then be floated out, by possibly only one person. It was not known to us how high the water in the river could be during different seasons, and how deep a ditch might need to be dug for the idea to work.

View of the canoe before recovery.

The canoe looked to be shaped by blade because there were sharp angles not likely formed by burning. I insisted we do not touch even the plants on it until photos were taken or an archaeologist gives an OK. We counted our paces out in the most direct path we could manage so we could find it again.

The next day was Monday. I worked less than a mile from the site. During my lunch break I brought my Polaroid camera and took several photos of the canoe. After work I had classes at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. I took my photos and started looking for someone in archaeology or anthropology. All the offices were closed at night. None of my classes of my major were in Anthropology so I had never spoken to, or knew any archaeologist. I noted Dr. William Sears was the Director. Tuesday morning I again had classes and I made a point of getting to Dr. Sears.

I showed him the pictures and asked, “Is there was some way it could be recovered before a bulldozer ran it over, or the land was developed?” He gave me the address of Mrs. Wilma B. Williams, in Hollywood, Florida, who was the director of the Broward County Archaeological Society, a chapter of the Florida Anthropological Society.

Next I wrote a short letter about the find and Dr. Sears’ referral, and mailed it to her. On Thursday afternoon the phone rang and I answered it. It was Wilma and her first words were, “When can we meet?” We set up Saturday. On Saturday about 9:30, my dad and I, Keith, John, Wilma, and Burt Mowers all met to look at the canoe. Wilma and Burt agreed it could be safely removed, and they would get it tomorrow.

On Sunday a group of almost thirty of us started the recovery. We picked the most direct route from the road to the canoe. With machetes in hand, the two lines spaced themselves with blades tip to tip apart and cut their way forward through everything. Replacements took over for the tired. The result was a direct path. It looked like a ten foot wide hole had been drilled through the woods and brush.

Four two-by-fours were tied across the canoe with two inch diameter rope. One youth had the job of passing the rope under the canoe in the water of the depression. This is how we found how long and deep the depression was under the water. Eight strong men then lifted the waterlogged canoe, but we could not hold it long enough to inch forward. Another board and two men were added. We could now lift and walk in six inch steps. We could move about twenty feet before everyone became exhausted. Many replacements were used by the time we got it to the truck for removal. The flatbed truck had a bed that tilted to make loading possible. Next, they hauled the canoe back to their workshop at Flamingo Groves, one of the orange groves west of Fort Lauderdale in Davie, Florida.

In the workshop they put down a thick plastic sheet. The canoe was placed on the sheet. A strong box was built around the canoe using the plastic as a liner to prevent leaking. The canoe was then covered in a solution of white Elmer’s Glue and water.

The ratio was 2 parts water to one part glue. A circulating pump was positioned to keep it all flowing and cover the exposed surfaces. This was done for fourteen months. The capillary action of the glue rising through the wood fibers displaced all the water. At that time, the tank was drained and the glue allowed to dry. When the glue was dry the entire canoe was very hard and ready for display. The glue did not change the color or appearance of the wood. The wood was so weak before preservation that you could crumble soft wood fibers away from the top of the sides by just rubbing it with your finger tips. After preservation it was so solid it rang like a wood bell when tapped.

View of the canoe after conservation.

The chapter had a small frame house that was their museum, generously rented to the group for one dollar a year. Admission fees were half a dollar, voluntary, and helped the chapter run the museum. They now had a major attraction and the donations increased as the number of visitors increased. The dugout canoe had its’ first museum home. This donation resulted in an offer to me to join the Broward County Archaeological Society, which I eagerly accepted. I worked as a volunteer with the group on most Sundays doing field work until we moved to Georgia over three years later.

Soon Wilma Williams was followed by a new member, Gypsy Graves, as director. She moved the museum contents from Flamingo Groves to downtown Fort Lauderdale, the second museum location. The new location was next to the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society. I visited it again and took pictures of the preserved canoe in this location. For a short time they moved to an empty store nearby. Then they moved to a large building in Dania Beach on highway U.S. 1. There was a name change with this fourth location.

From newspaper clippings sent to me by a friend, it appears there was a lot of leadership controversy about Graves. She and her daughter could not account for $100,000. The museum was in debt for $885,788. Their web page shows they are defunct, and the Bankruptcy Court had taken control of the museum. The Fort Lauderdale newspaper stated on February 17, 2003 that items worth $450,000 were sold for a very small amount to pay debt. There was no other information about what was sold, or what happened to the remainder. At that time, I didn’t know the status or location of the canoe, and I assumed it was lost. My depressing thoughts were it may have been discarded, sold privately, made into a decoration at a restaurant, or left outside somewhere to rot. This is what I had hoped would never happen.

Revisit and update: Canoe déjà vu?

On Wednesday, March 29, 2006 I went to Dania, Florida to where The South Florida Museum of Archaeology and Natural History had been located. A company called “E-tour and Travel” occupied a small office on one side of the otherwise empty January of 2005 all the contents of the museum were removed by a man named Frank. The remainder of the building is completely empty. A woman named Kirsty was the caretaker and had a key to show this location to possible renters. Her home was next to the museum and I might find her there. Nobody was home then, so I left my phone and email address at her front door. My note explained who I was, and why I was interested in the status of the canoe.

On Friday, March 31, 2006 I received an email from Ms. Kirsty Forgie. She is with the Broward Community College as the Museum Collection Coordinator, and the Coordinator of the World Cultures Collections, both associated with the B.C.C. Library Department.

She stated that nothing had been sold or auctioned. Everyone who brought papers to prove ownership of items loaned to the museum had their items returned to them. The bankruptcy court awarded the remainder of the collection to the Broward Community College on March 28, 2005. This included the dugout canoe.

On April 14, 2006 I found and scanned several black and white photos I took in 1970 and sent them to her. With them was included an early draft of this information. She responded with thanks for my interest, and for sending the background information. No one of the Broward County Archaeological Society, or the earlier museum staff, preserved any information about the background of the dugout. The notes I provided on my visit to the Historical Society did not survive. In the ten years of working in the museum she said she had not known any of this information or what conservation methods were used to preserve it. She said recently the B.C.C. executive board had approved the loan of the dugout canoe to be displayed at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale. It is a first class facility located near the Fine Art Museum and even includes an IMAX theater. The museum was founded thirty years ago and now serves about 400,000 visitors a year. Many of them are children on their school field trips.

In my view, this museum is an ideal location to loan the dugout canoe. Here it can reach and stimulate the maximum number of students and other viewers. The dugout canoe was found in Fort Lauderdale and ideally belongs in the Fort Lauderdale area. Now it will be available to the public again. I am very satisfied with this outcome. The loan to the Discovery Center has now ended. Ms. Forgie notified me on February 4, 2008 that it is currently on display at the college. They now have another canoe from South America, and the two form a new display together. Soon I will return to the Fort Lauderdale area to see it one more time. However, with déjà vu, this too, may not be the end!

Since the summer, TRC has continued to work hard on pipeline (and other) projects across the Southeast. In Georgia, we have carried out a handful of survey projects in DeKalb, Cherokee, Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Houston, McDuffie, and Whitfield counties, with nothing especially interesting to report. One project that seemed to have potential for some good archaeology was a survey of a large tract on Lake Sinclair, followed by testing of three Lamar sites. The Lamar ceramics recovered from many of the 23 sites identified in the tract reflected the dense occupation that existed along the Oconee River valley during the Mississippian period. Unfortunately, the test excavations at the three potentially significant sites that could not be preserved revealed no archaeological integrity, likely the result of prior land use practices and erosion—all too common in the Georgia Piedmont. But disappointing findings like this make you really appreciate a pristine site when you find one.

Selected Lamar ceramics recovered from one of the sites investigated along Lake Sinclair.

Figure 1. English leaded crystal from Fort Daniel.

GARS continues its study of the Fort Daniel site (9GW623) in Gwinnett County, having completed the first phase of investigations on November 9 after 16 weekends in the field. Results of the investigations to date were presented at the Fall SGA meeting. A PowerPoint presentation in PDF format is available on the GARS website at www.thegars.org (see also The Profile No. 135 Fall 2007 pp.6-8).

Several “partners” have helped in these investigations including the Gwinnett County GIS Department. Our collaboration with them was featured in a poster for the National Geography Day event November 14 held at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center. GARS is also collaborating with the Gwinnett Historical Society and others in an effort to save the site from destruction by means of purchasing the tract.

GARS Historian Shannon Coffey continues to work on artifact cleaning, cataloguing and—her special area of interest— analysis of ceramics and glass. In addition to wonderful examples of (early) hand-painted polychrome pearlware (a bowl and accompanying pieces, probably teacups, dating to 1795- 1820), possibly English-made banded annular ware (a mug dating to 1785-1840), and brown transfer ware featuring an Asian pastoral scene dating ca. 1810, we have also recently recovered several sherds of imported English wheel-etched leaded crystal (Figure 1). The sherds suggest a tumbler, perhaps monogrammed, that is tentatively dated to about 1760.

Figure 2. Nail from Fort Daniel in relation to published type illustration.

We have jokingly concluded that the area this glass came from must have been the officer’s quarters. In any case, the presence of fine table ware, including a complete, bone-handled table knife with incised decoration (mid 1700s), suggests that life on the Georgia frontier was not without its amenities. TRC lab director, Tommy Garrow, has been helping with the cleaning and stabilization of metal artifacts including a great number of nails and nail fragments. One surprise was the presence of machine cut nails on the frontier. Could they point to a later structure on this site?

Machine cut nails in the industrialized north begin to appear after 1790, and they gradually replaced the far more expensive hand wrought nails, which by 1815 were pretty much relegated to the specialty market. While the majority of nails so far recovered at Fort Daniel are hand-wrought, as would be expected for an 1813 fort that replaced 1790s fort, there are also a large number of machine-cut, hand-headed nails exhibiting very distinct diagnostic attributes. According to Edwards and Wells’ Historic Louisiana Nails: A Guide to Dating of Old Buildings, the Fort Daniel machine nails would be a “Type 3d,” manufactured by a short-lived process that can be narrowly dated to 1805-1810, though the authors suggest that they might have been around to about 1815 (Figure 2). The period of manufacture and use of this particular nail fits well with the date of the construction of Fort Daniel, so we believe that these nails, as well as the hand-wrought nails, are credibly associated with Fort Daniel.

A technical report with contributions by several GARS members will hopefully be completed before the spring. Except for completing excavation of features, so far only partially excavated, no new excavations will be carried out at Fort Daniel until this report is completed. Hopefully, if preservation efforts are not successful, additional work can be carried out before the property is sold and developed.

This year our Society held its Fall Picnic on November 3 at Fife Plantation, later than usual due to warnings about heat and mosquitoes, the hazards of visiting a Savannah River plantation. Nevertheless, after a slightly chilly start, it was a perfect fall day with brilliant sunshine lending a glow to what were once rice fields and a sparkle to the windruffled waters of the many canals. We took a mile-long selfguided tour of the old rice dikes and “Oscar’s house”, the lone surviving 1920s era tenant house. Prior to our walk, our host, Robbie Harrison, gave us a wonderful hands-on talk about what really goes into preserving an old river plantation. Although no rice is raised there, the fields are kept grassed for the cattle and the canals and sluice gates or “trunks” maintained to regulate water flow. The problems he described ranged from salt water intrusion and repairs to gates, to eagles that killed a herd of sheep.

CGAS members touring Fife Plantation.

On October 18, CGAS members enjoyed attending the “Diversity of Coastal Archaeology” conference in Midway, and contributed by adding yet another dugout canoe to the known inventory. The canoe was probably built in Effingham County around 1870, and is on exhibit at the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal Museum. Our usual December meeting, at the Oyster Roast with the Elderhostel, has been cancelled, and we are in the process of planning another activity. Future events planned for spring 2008 include our annual archaeology lecture jointly sponsored with the Savannah College of Art and Design. Anyone wishing to contact CGAS can do so at (912) 920-2299 or Carndt2651@aol.com.

Ca. 1870 canoe from Effingham County.

Many of the archeological phase names currently used for northwest Georgia are directly attributable to the work of Joseph Caldwell in Allatoona Reservoir more than fifty years ago (Caldwell 1950, 1957). While terminology has changed over the years, most of the designations used by Caldwell remain in use today. For instance, the old term “Kellogg focus” is now referred to as Kellogg phase and “Cartersville focus” is now referred to as Cartersville phase (Garrow 2002:2). This change to modern terminology has been gradual and there have been relatively recent cases where an author considered it “advisable to retain the older terminological structure to avoid potential confusion” (Cable et al. 1991:80).

It is a little known fact that Caldwell also defined a Late Archaic phase for the Allatoona Reservoir that he called the Stamp Creek focus (Caldwell 1957:279). Based on his description, the Stamp Creek focus would be comparable in many respects to the Late Archaic Mill Branch or Black Shoals phases of eastern Georgia (Elliott et al. 1994:371, Stanyard 2003:62). The most diagnostic artifact type associated with each of these is represented by large stemmed projectile points that may be identified as Savannah River Stemmed (Coe 1959:44) or Appalachian Stemmed (Kneberg 1957). While these two point names appear to be regional variants of the same type, the name Appalachian Stemmed tends to be used for points made from quartzite (Cambron and Hulse 1964:6).

Caldwell devoted substantial space in his Allatoona report to the discussion of the Stamp Creek focus, but it would seem that he did not pursue the subject further after that project. A search of the University of Georgia’s Laboratory of Archaeology Manuscript Files produced a single document on the subject. A manuscript entitled “The Stamp Creek Culture: A Prepottery Occupation in the Etowah Area, Georgia” is not dated, but a notation in the text indicates it was written prior to 1955. In reading Trend and Tradition in the Prehistory of the Eastern United States, the Stamp Creek type site is mentioned, but the Stamp Creek focus is not discussed (Caldwell 1958:80). Because the Allatoona Survey report was never published, relatively few archeologists have been made aware of Caldwell’s Late Archaic phase description.

Caldwell’s Stamp Creek focus was intended to represent the final stage of the Archaic period, but his trait list probably includes some artifacts from earlier and later periods. Artifact drawings include large stemmed projectile points, a variety of smaller stemmed points, notched points and soapstone sherds. Figure 1 shows one of Caldwell’s illustrations of projectile points thought to be part of the Stamp Creek focus (the figure also depicts triangular points of the later Kellogg focus). Using the data available at the time, Caldwell felt the Stamp Creek focus assemblage differed in some respects from the closely related Savannah River focus of eastern Georgia (Fairbanks 1942:223-231) and the Lauderdale focus of northern Alabama (Webb and DeJarnette 1942:19).

With respect to the traits used to define the Stamp Creek focus, Caldwell noted that of the various stemmed points found on the sites, the medium to large ‚“simple tang” (stemmed) points were the most characteristic and also showed the closest resemblance to materials from other Southeastern pre-ceramic foci (Caldwell 1957:279, 1958:13). Such points are usually relatively large and heavy, the stem is square, and the shoulders broad and well defined (Caldwell 1957: Figures 8 and 9). Caldwell also included hemispherical steatite bowls and other groundstone artifacts as traits of the focus. Caldwell recognized that perforated steatite tablets, “the so-called net sinkers,” that are so numerous at Stallings Island and other Savannah River Focus sites, were practically absent in the Allatoona area. The excavated Stamp Creek focus sites produced no axes, atlatl weights, bone or shell artifacts (Caldwell 1957:280).

Caldwell noted that at Allatoona, quartzite was usually employed for large simple tang points, but quartz was little used. Flint (chert) was used to produce smaller points that were highly variable in shape and included slight (expanded) tang, simple (straight) tang, bifurcated tang, corner notched, side notched and stemless (Caldwell 1957:9). As previously noted, some of the points would be recognized today as dating to earlier or later time periods.

Figure 1. Examples of projectile points and bifaces associated with Caldwell’s Stamp Creek focus with comparisons to those of the Kellogg focus. The large quartzite points in the center are typical examples (illustration courtesy of the University of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology). Click image for much larger version of the figure.

Caldwell’s excavations on the Stamp Creek site produced a number of features and he concluded that 18 pits could be attributed to the Stamp Creek focus occupation. Most appeared to be used for storage of food, but one contained red ochre and some traces of human bone. Most of the pits were similar in appearance, usually with straight sides and flat bottoms. Dimensions ranged from 2.5 to 5 feet in diameter and 1.5 to 3 feet deep. A few were oval or oblong and in two or three instances, sides were sloping. Based on our current understanding of diagnostic artifact types, some of the features identified by Caldwell are probably associated with later occupations (terminal Late Archaic or Woodland). Still, the evidence remains that 9BR139 was an intensively occupied habitation site of the period.

Caldwell regarded the Stamp Creek Focus as a relatively late pre-ceramic culture but he cautioned that the absence of fiber tempered pottery on these sites did not mean that the ceramic type was not being used in the region (Caldwell 1957:280). Caldwell’s report actually illustrates one fiber tempered sherd from the Stamp Creek site and he describes one additional fiber tempered sherd form another survey site, 9CK101, as “Stallings Island Incised and Punctate” (Caldwell 1957:207). At present, we have no means of determining if the fiber tempered sherds were associated with the Stamp Creek focus or a later occupation.

Subsequent to Caldwell’s work in Allatoona Reservoir, other sites have been identified in northwestern Georgia that contain large Savannah River Stemmed or Appalachian Stemmed types that are made quartzite or other equally hard lithic materials (Beasley 1995, Benson et al. 2007, Crook 1984, Webb 1998). The identified site types include intensively occupied habitation sites, short term camps, and quarry-oriented lithic workshops. One recently investigated site, 9GO231, is of particular interest because Savannah River style projectile points made from quartzite and Ridge and Valley chert occur in nearly equal numbers (Benson et al. 2007). 9GO231 is located within the Ridge and Valley Province, while most of the other sites discovered to date lie at the edge of the Piedmont Province. A few radiocarbon dates have been procured in the past decade from northwest Georgia sites that are in line with those of the Mill Branch and Black Shoals phases of eastern Georgia and western South Carolina (Webb 1998, Steve Webb, personal communication 2007). The suggested range of Mill Branch and Black Shoals phases extends from approximately 4200 to 3450 B.P. (Stanyard 2003:62). It would appear that Caldwell’s Stamp Creek focus should fit comfortably within that time period.

During the 1970s, archeologists began using the term Savannah River phase to cover the entire pre-ceramic Late Archaic period in the northern part of Georgia (DePratter 1975:4) and that phase designation has been used in a few northwestern Georgia reports (Bowen 1989:115, Crook 1984:55). In his recent overview of the Archaic period of northwestern Georgia, Stanyard (2003:58) concluded that a general lack of information impedes our ability to assess the nature of the Late Archaic development in the region and he proposed a provisional category of “undifferentiated phase” for the period of ca 5000 to 3000 B.P. (Stanyard 2003:58). I suggest that Caldwell’s Stamp Creek focus represents a useful tool for the study of a portion of the Late Archaic period. Unfortunately, we cannot simply change the word “focus” to “phase” and was the case for Kellogg and Cartersville. The name Stamp Creek phase was adopted several years ago as a Lamar designation (Hally and Rudolph 1986:64). While Caldwell’s Late Archaic designation has historical precedence, it is unlikely that the Lamar phase name will ever be changed. For the time being, it is perhaps just as well that we continue to use the name “Caldwell’s Stamp Creek focus” in our discussions of the Late Archaic for northwest Georgia.

References Cited

Beasley, Robert K.
1995 Artifacts from the Basin of Pumpkinvine Creek, Georgia. Central States Archaeological Journal 42(3):146-147.

Benson Robert W., Scott Jones, and Andrew Ivester
2007 Phase III Excavations of 9GO231 on Lick and Salacoa Creeks, Gordon County, Georgia. Draft report submitted to the Georgia Department of Transportation by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., Athens.

Bowen, William Rowe
1989 An Examination of Subsistence, Settlement, and Chronology During the Early Woodland Kellogg Phase in the Piedmont Physiographic Province of the Eastern United States. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Cable, John S., Leslie E. Raymer, J.H. Raymer, and Charles E. Cantley
1991 Archaeological Test Excavations at The Lake Ackworth Site (9CO45) and the Butler Creek Site (9CO46) Allatoona Lake, Cobb County, Georgia. Report submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District by New South Associates, Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Caldwell, Joseph R.
1950 A Preliminary Report on Excavations in the Allatoona Reservoir. Early Georgia 1(1):5-21.
1957 Survey and Excavations in the Allatoona Reservoir, Northern Georgia. University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology Manuscript No. 151, Athens.
1958 Trend and Tradition in the Prehistory of the Eastern United States. Memoir No. 88, American Anthropological Association and the Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, vol. X, Springfield Illinois.

Cambron, James W. and David C. Hulse
1964 Handbook of Alabama Archaeology: Part 1, Point Types. Alabama Archaeological Society, Huntsville.

Coe, Joffre
1964 The Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 54(5), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Crook, Morgan R., Jr.
1984 Cagle Site Report, Archaic and Early Woodland Period Manifestations in the North Georgia Piedmont. West Georgia College Occasional Papers in Cultural Resource Management, no. 2. Prepared for Georgia Department of Transportation, Atlanta.

DePratter, Chester B.
1975 The Archaic in Georgia. Early Georgia 3(1):1-16.

Elliott, Daniel T., Jerald Ledbetter and Elizabeth Gordon
1994 Data Recovery at Lovers Lane, Phinizy Swamp and the Old Dike Sites Bobby Jones Expressway Extension Corridor, Augusta, Georgia. Occasional Papers in Cultural Resource Management, no. 7. Georgia Department of Transportation, Atlanta.

Fairbanks, Charles H.
1942 The Taxonomic Position of Stallings Island, Georgia. American Antiquity 7(3):223-231.

Garrow, Patrick H.
2002 The Woodland North of the Fall Line. Paper presented Southeastern Archeological Conference, Macon, Georgia.

Hally, David J. and Teresa Rudolph
1986 Mississippian Period Archaeology of the Georgia Piedmont. Laboratory of Archaeology Series Report, no. 2. University of Georgia, Athens.

Kneberg, Madeline
1957 Chipped Stone Artifacts of the Tennessee Valley Area. Tennessee Archaeologist XIII(1). Tennessee Archaeological Society, Knoxville.

Stanyard, William F.
2003 Archaic Period Archaeology of Northern Georgia. Georgia Archaeological Research Design Paper, no. 13. University of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology Report No. 38.

Webb, Robert S.
1998 Archeological Investigations at Three Prehistoric Sites (9DW64, 9DW77 and 9CK713) Cherokee and Dawson Counties, Georgia, Cherokee County Raw Water Supply Reservoir. Prepared for Cherokee County Water and Sewerage Authority, Canton, Georgia by R.S. Webb and Associates, Holly Springs, Georgia.

Webb, William S. And David L. DeJarnette
1942 An Archaeological Survey of the Pickwick Basin in Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 129, Washington.

In September 2006, Leake Site Principal Investigators Scot Keith and Dean Wood took a trip to Indiana in order to conduct research into the Mann site, a Middle Woodland Hopewell site located in southwestern Indiana. This site is notable due to the presence (and abundance) of Swift Creek complicated stamped pottery, as well as sand tempered simple stamped wares very similar to Cartersville simple stamped pottery. The site has long been known to contain Swift Creek type pottery, recognized by such archaeologists as James Kellar and Bret Ruby. As the Swift Creek complicated stamped pottery tradition is not endemic to that region, its presence indicates a connection between Swift Creek and the Midwestern Hopewellian peoples. Our research was designed to investigate this connection.

We examined the Mann site collections held at the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University in Bloomington and the private collection owned by Charles Lacer in Evansville. We took with us photographs of numerous selected Swift Creek sherds from Leake in order to search for potential design matches with the examples from Mann. While no exact design matches were found, we did come away with several interesting observations. Many of the complicated stamped design elements are shared between the sites, yet one design common at Leake—the barred oval—is rare at Mann. Furthermore, we noted numerous examples of the zigzagged Crooked River design at Mann, which is common in the Gulf Coastal and southwestern Georgia region, and conversely absent at Leake. An early Swift Creek pottery rim trait—deep and closely spaced rounded notches (often referred to as notched or scalloped)—is very common for the complicated stamped rim sherds from Mann, and this rim form is common at Leake as well.

As documented by Ruby, the Swift Creek complicated stamped wares from Mann are produced using a grog/clay tempered paste, while the simple stamped wares are sand tempered. Petrographic analysis conducted on the Mann site sherds indicates that the complicated stamped wares are produced locally, while the simple stamped wares are non-local—the materials suggesting a Southeastern origin. While assembling Leake sherds for a petrographic study shortly after returning from this research trip, Mr. Keith noted a complicated stamped notched rim sherd which was extremely similar to the Mann site examples, particularly in terms of paste temper and texture. This sherd was submitted to Dr. James Stoltman for petrographic analysis in order to see if there may be a direct connection between these two significant sites. The results from the petrographic analysis indicate that this sherd probably did derive from the Mann site, as may a small rocker stamped rim sherd we recovered!

Another ceramic variety recovered from the Mann site consisted of diamond shaped checks, each with a raised square or circle within. Examples of this type are also known from Hopewell sites in Ohio (such as Seip, Rockhold, Harness, and Turner), as well as from contemporaneous Southeastern sites having Hopewellian assemblages. Such sherds have been found at the Miner’s Creek site and 9Hy98 near Atlanta, Mandeville in southwest Georgia, and the Yearwood site in southern Tennessee. We feel that this variety may be related to the unidentified decorated type at Leake.

Our road trip demonstrated some very significant long distance connections (450 straight line miles) between the Swift Creek heartland in the central Georgia and southern Indiana as well as connections between the Leake and Mann sites specifically. More details and some illustrations of the connections can be found by clicking here.

Meta-slate axe from the Hardin Bridge site.

Research of the Hardin Bridge Site (9BR34) in Bartow County site is ongoing at New South Associates. Laboratory analysis has shown that the Hardin Bridge site represents a Late Archaic through early Middle Woodland timeframe based on lithic and pottery specimens. To date, the majority of hafted bifaces are consistent with the Late Archaic Ledbetter cluster, Savannah River, and Elora types. Woodland types of Yadkin and Copena also are represented. A number of Otarre-Swannanoa points bridge the gap, indicating a Late Archaic-Early Woodland transition occupation. Pottery specimens are mostly of the Middle Woodland Cartersville variety with check- and simple-stamped surface decorations. One specimen of Dunlap fabric marked has been identified from a deeply buried context suggesting limited Early Woodland occupation. Specimens of ground stone also are represented and manufactured from a locally found, greenish colored slate. These implements appear to be utilitarian hoes and axes with a lesser quantity of highly polished fragments. One such tool, a polished meta-slate axe (or celt) displays a hafting element as well as excessive use wear. This particular artifact is representative of the ground and polished slate tools that occur throughout the site.

Elk River Stemmed point from the Hardin Bridge site.

Also of interest is a hafted biface not typically found in Georgia that was identified during analysis. This Elk River Stemmed point was made from a Ridge and Valley chert (likely of the Conasauga variety) and supports the Late Archaic component of the site. The point type, while common in northern Alabama and central Tennessee, is rarely found in Georgia (Justice 1987). Also, a drill crafted of the same Conasauga chert was recovered, exhibiting basal hafting and a bi-convex cross section. Pending analysis of flotation samples from numerous features may reveal greater information regarding foraging and nascent agriculture in the Etowah Valley.

Drill from the Hardin Bridge site.

Numerous events associated with this project have provided outreach opportunities to both adults and children. R. Jeannine Windham has presented information on the Hardin Bridge site for local archaeological societies and a radio show. In addition, a large outreach event was co-organized with the Georgia Department of Transportation and provided an opportunity to discuss and participate in archaeological and cultural activities through an Archaeology Day. Greater information on the site and outreach events can be seen here.

References cited

Justice, Noel D.
1987 Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Major technological and cultural innovations have the potential to influence technology and culture beyond the immediate realm of the innovation itself. While the widespread adoption of fired clay ceramics in the terminal Archaic/Early Woodland era is directly relevant to food preparation, the transition from indirect heating (stone-boiling) to direct heating in pots represents a dynamic techno-cultural change. Ever since Coe (1964) demonstrated that early Woodland triangular projectile point forms differ dramatically from the stemmed terminal Archaic forms that immediately precede them, archaeologists have sought plausible reasons for this change. This article explores the possible influence of early ceramics on the practical manufacture of adhesives used in hafting, which would accommodate significant changes in projectile point form. This is inferred from the apparent shift from Archaic period use of plant resins (pitch) to early historic use of animal collagen (‚“hide”) glue.

The manufacture of hide glue requires precise heat control, which is greatly improved by the use of a clay pot. The glue can be made from a variety of animal parts, including hide shavings (shown in pot), sinew (also shown), hoof, velvet antler, and fish skin.

Archaic points, irrespective of form, have explicit haft areas. These haft elements often have large amounts of surface area, providing a sturdy bond between the tool and the haft. Basal grinding is common on many Archaic point forms (not just Early Archaic types, on which grinding is often extreme). This helps prevent damage to fiber bindings, but of equal importance, grinding strengthens the haft area against breakage.

Despite poor organic preservation in the southeast, pitch residues are occasionally found. Webb (1946) mentions pitch on a number of antler and bone artifacts from Indian Knoll, as well as a block of pitch in a burial; pitch residues were found on the stone points from the Windover site in Florida (Doran 2002). In Georgia, Ledbetter et al. (2001) report plant resin residues on processing tools from Bartow County.

From dry caves and rock shelters of the western U.S., Aikens (1970), Dalley (1977), Gunnerson (1962), Jennings (1978) and others refer to the use of pitch on various artifacts. Cosgrove (1947), however, specifically states that hafted artifacts from his study area were bound with sinew alone, and pitch was not used. Despite this absence of pitch, his emphatic remarks highlight the prevalence of this adhesive in other parts of the arid west, while illustrating the importance of fiber bindings (e.g., sinew) in the Archaic tradition.

Pitch glue can be made with simple equipment such as a shell (shown, containing raw resin) or a flat rock (a small pot or large sherd can be used as well). It can be made into pitch sticks for future use. It is used for hafting tools (knife and projectile foreshaft shown), patching and caulking, and inlay work.

Thus it would seem that plant resin mastic—pitch—was widely used during the Archaic period. Yet by historic times it seems to vanish from the technological landscape. For instance, Swanton (1946) cites several sources who describe how Native Americans (mostly in what is now Virginia) of the early historic era hafted their arrow points. In addition to sinew bindings, these accounts uniformly mention animal glue, specifically that made from deer antler. Such glue is particular to the immature growing antler, in the ‚“velvet” stage. Swanton also refers to glue made from deer skin and fish. Yet nowhere does he mention the use of pitch or pine tar, noting only that pitchpine (presumably heart pine ‚“lightwood‚“) was a source of soot for tattoos.

How, though, does this apparent change in hafting relate to ceramic technology? Can a case be made for a relationship between hafting methods, projectile point form, and pottery? To consider this, let us look at the merits and limitations of plant mastics and animal glues. Pitch glue is made from the resins of coniferous trees (notably pine in the southeast), and a small number of deciduous trees (sweetgum is our best example). Pitch is a good hunter-gatherer adhesive—it requires minimal equipment, it is maintainable, and it allows re-hafting—and fits into Bleed’s (1986) maintainability type. It is easy to make, requiring a modest supply of resin and minimal gear: a mussel shell or flat rock for a preparation vessel; some organic temper (such as charcoal powder); and a fire on which to heat it (see Jones 2005 for a discussion of pitch glue). Short lengths of fiber may be added to the pitch as well (Silsby 1999). In a pinch, pine resin may be gathered and heated as-is on the end of a stick, and applied while hot. Pitch provides support and fills gaps within the haft, and is more or less waterproof. The down side is that it is not very flexible and becomes brittle over time, thus requiring maintenance.

Animal (‚“hide”) glue, on the other hand, is somewhat more complicated, and conforms to Bleed’s (1986) reliability type. Water-soluble, it is made from velvet antler, hide, hooves, sinew, horn (bovine, not horn as misapplied to antler), and other collagen-rich animal products. It is very strong, flexible, and durable, though not waterproof. Because hide glue is prepared by carefully reducing the volume of cooking liquid to a residue, good temperature regulation is necessary. The jelly-like residue may be used immediately, but because it is essentially a protein-rich soup, it spoils if left in a liquid form. Although somewhat timeconsuming, it may be dried and reconstituted (see Richards 1997 for a discussion of hide glue). It is evident that stone-boiling would be an impractical and imprecise technique for a process requiring good heat regulation and prolonged simmering time. Also, hot rocks would likely scorch the glue as the volume is reduced.

Soapstone or fiber-tempered ceramic vessels can be used, but Sassaman (1993) suggests that early versions of these were not heated directly on the fire. And soapstone vessels, while relatively common, likely had cultural significance that exempted them from the realm of ‚“everyday” cookware. Cooking up a batch of hide glue in the village pot may have been distinctly frowned upon. Though conjectural, it seems that hide glue assumes the role of a practical day-to-day adhesive only when fire-worthy ceramics become commonplace.

Thus the advent of well made grit-tempered ceramics in northwest Georgia (e.g., Kellogg phase, about 700 B.C.) coincides approximately with the appearance of Early Woodland triangular points lacking a well-defined haft area. [Stemmed points continue to be used, but the trend is dominated by triangular forms.] Early versions (Yadkin and Copena points, for instance) are large, and through the Woodland and Mississippian periods triangular points become ever smaller. Size does not present a problem, since we know that the bow comes into use during this time.

The use of animal glue is not exclusive to triangular point styles. It is entirely possible to haft stemmed and notched points with hide glue and sinew. Triangular points are difficult to haft securely with pitch (with or without fiber binding). Regardless of point type, it is possible to use hide glue and sinew as the main hafting material, with a coating of waterproof pitch. This may have been done, but this does not seem to be the case. Drawing from ethnographic and archaeological inferences, it seems that the use of pitch glue in Archaic times is supplanted by animal glues by the historic period. The development and ready availability of ceramic pottery is a possible key to this change.

References Cited

Aikens, C. Melvin
1970 Hogup Cave. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, no. 93.

Bleed, P.
1986 The Optimal Design of Hunting Weapons: Maintainability or Reliability. American Antiquity 51(4): 737-747.

Coe, Joffre. L.
1964 The Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 54(5). American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

Cosgrove, C.B.
1947 Caves of the Upper Gila and Hueco Areas in New Mexico and Texas. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology Papers 24(2):48-58.

Dalley, Gardiner F.
1977 Swallow Shelter and Associated Sites. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, vol. 96.

Doran, Glen H.
2002 Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery. University Press of Florida: Gainesville.

Gunnerson, James H.
1962 Unusual Artifacts from Castle Valley, Central Utah. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, vol. 60.

Jennings, Jesse D.
1978 Prehistory of Utah and the Eastern Great Basin. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, vol. 98.

Jones, Scott
2005 Pitch Glue. Bulletin of Primitive Technology 29:11-19.

Ledbetter, R. Jerald, Thomas Neumann, Mary Spinks, and Andrea Shea
2001 Archaeological Investigation of the Vulcan Site, Bartow County, Georgia. Early Georgia 29(2):97-179.

Richards, Matt
1997 Deerskins Into Buckskins: How to Tan with Natural Materials. Backcountry Publishing, Cave Junction, Oregon.

Sassaman, Kenneth E.
1993 Early Pottery in the Southeast: Tradition and Innovation in Cooking Technology. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Silsby, Scott
1999 Mummy Varnish, Spruce Gum, and Other Sticky Stuff. In Primitive Technology: A Book of Earthskills, pp. 187-189. David Wescott, editor. Gibbs Smith, Publisher. Salt Lake City.

Swanton, John R.
1946 The Indians of the Southeastern United States. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 137. Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

Torrence, R.
1989 Retooling: Towards a Behavioral Theory of Stone Tools. In Time, Energy, and Stone Tools. Edited by Robin Torrence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.

Webb, W. S.
1946 Indian Knoll: Site OH2, Ohio County, Kentucky. Reports in Anthropology and Archaeology 4(3), Part 1. University of Kentucky, Lexington.

Archaeologists with EEG recently completed the evaluations of 11 sites on Robins Air Force Base in Houston County, Georgia. Sites 9HT55 and 9HT56, both near Echeconnee Creek, were the only two found to be eligible for listing on the National Register. The former had seven components (Early, Middle, and Late Archaic; Early and Middle Woodland; Late Mississippian Lamar; and Historic Creek) and the latter had five (Late Archaic; Early and Middle Woodland; Late Mississippian Lamar; and Historic Creek). A number of lithic and ceramic diagnostics were recovered from both sites. One interesting item that caused some premature Paleo excitement was an Early Archaic unifacial sidescraper (see picture). A report on this work is forthcoming.

Edwards-Pitman Environmental, Inc. (EPEI) recently completed Phase III fieldwork at 9PU20 near Hawkinsville, GA. The excavations were conducted on behalf of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) as part of a proposed bridge replacement over Big Tucsawatchee Creek (also known as Big Creek) on State Route 230. The site is located on a fluvial terrace overlooking the creek and consists of a large, high-density scatter of lithics produced mainly from Coastal Plain chert.

Previous Phase I and II investigations by GDOT archaeologists in 1997 yielded two cultural features and a large collection of artifacts associated with Middle Paleoindian to Late Mississippian occupations. Lithic tools and debitage manufactured from locally available chert comprised the bulk of the assemblage. Most notable was the recovery of two Middle Paleoindian projectile points (Simpson and Suwannee), as well as those associated with Early Archaic, Late Archaic, and Mississippian occupations. The ceramic collection, while small, included fiber-tempered, Refuge, Deptford, Swift Creek, possible Etowah, and Lamar components.

Figure 1. Edwards-Pitman archaeologists and field mascot, Hunter, at Big Tucsawhatchee Creek Site (9PU20).

Recent data recovery investigations at 9PU20 were conducted under the supervision of Alvin J. Banguilan and included the excavation of nine small blocks totaling 39 m2 (see Figure 1). Despite the fact that only a narrow strip of right-of-way on both sides of SR 230 was examined, a large and diverse collection of artifacts was recovered and features were identified. Based on our initial impressions of the overall assemblage (we are only now beginning labwork), the site appears to have been extensively utilized during the Late Paleo/Early Archaic transition, Early Archaic, Late Archaic, Early to Middle Woodland, and Middle to Late Mississippian sub-periods. The collection consists of a large quantity of lithic debitage, projectile points, early and late stage bifaces, blade and bifacial core/ tools, scrapers, prismatic blades, and numerous retouched and utilized flake tools (see Figure 2). Lithic diagnostics that appear to have been recovered from undisturbed deposits include Taylor Side Notched, Kirk Corner Notched, and various Late Archaic and terminal Late Archaic Stemmed varieties. Woodland and Mississippian components, while numerous, appear mixed and largely limited to between 0–45 cm below surface. Further analysis should reveal if any additional spatial patterning exists in the upper strata.

Figure 2. Selected Projectile Points recovered from 9PU20.

A total of five features were identified during EPEI’s excavation; four, including two hearth-like features, one rock cluster, and one possible hearth maintenance/cleanout feature were found between 70–90 cm below surface and appear to be associated with the site’s Kirk/Palmer phase component. The remaining feature was encountered at 113 cm below surface and consisted of a faint soil lens associated with a Taylor Side Notched point and a small cluster of debitage and tools. It should be noted that the Simpson and Suwannee points mentioned earlier were found during GDOT’s Phase II investigation in shallow deposits mixed with later Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian components. At present, it remains unclear whether an intact Middle Paleoindian deposit is present at the site, although lithic material clearly extended below the identified Kirk/Palmer and Taylor horizons.

What became increasingly clear during the course of our field investigation was that site occupation was wide-ranging, extensive, and heavily oriented towards the local abundance of high quality Coastal Plain chert. Chert nodules could readily be seen in the shallow portions of Big Tucsawhatchee Creek and along its banks. Moreover, large chert outcroppings and dense of the site. Evidence of quarrying activity was also apparent in this area along with moderate scattering of debitage and tools. concentrations of boulder-size chert fragments were identified along an adjacent landform approximately 1 km northeast of the site. Evidence of quarrying activity was also apparent in this area along with moderate scattering of debitage and tools.

Georgia Archaeology Month 2002 focused on the prehistory of southwest Georgia, and especially the archaeology of the famous village and mound community we now call Kolomoki (pronounced ‚“Coal-oh-moe-key”), which is located in Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park in Early County, near Blakely.

At Kolomoki, Native Americans lived, worked, played, and died. It was most heavily populated from A.D. 350-750, during what archaeologists call the Woodland Period. The Native Americans there built houses, buildings, and mounds; they hunted game and gathered plants for food. They made pottery and tools to help them in their everyday tasks. But life wasn’t all work. They played games, danced, and participated in religious ceremonies. The main settlement where Indians lived at Kolomoki is one of the oldest Indian communities in Georgia that has temple-mounds. This is one thing that makes Kolomoki unique.

The pottery of Kolomoki and contemporaneous settlements in that area have distinctive, complex designs on the exterior of the pots. The lesson plan contains discussion topics about Woodland Period pottery designs. An example of a type of pottery design archaeologists call Swift Creek is pictured here.

Click here to download a copy of this lesson plan.