The Florida Public Archaeology Network has been established by the Florida legislature to provide, among other things, public outreach. The East Central Region of FPAN has posted online various teacher resources, including PDFs of two books of hands-on archaeology activities that teachers can use. Both are titled Beyond Artifacts….

The link directly to the page where those books can be downloaded is here.

Closeup of Etowah, c. A.D. 1325–1375, © 2004 by Steven Patricia; courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Society for Georgia Archaeology is proud to offer the 2009 Lesson Plan, Learning through Archaeology: Etowah Indian Mounds. This is the twelfth in our series of Lesson Plans, offered to teachers and others as part of the Society’s mission to work actively to preserve, study and interpret Georgia’s historic and prehistoric remains.

This Lesson Plan coordinates with the theme of our 2009 Archaeology Month meeting, Mounds in Our Midst: Monuments of Prehistoric Culture in Georgia. Georgia’s archaeological landscape features numerous abandon prehistoric communities with artificial, human-constructed earthen mounds. Created by diverse Native American cultures, mainly between 500 BC-AD 1550, these remarkable monuments are evocative reminders of prehistoric societies that once flourished in every corner of the state.

Archaeology Month 2009 is devoted to a celebration of the survival of prehistoric mounds, and a meditation over their purpose and meaning. The Spring Meeting will be held May 16th and 17th at Wesleyan College in Macon. $10 per person registration fee. Review the program and see a map of the meeting location by clicking here.

Download the 2009 Lesson Plan by clicking here.

SGA’s 2008 Archaeology Month topic was “Archaeological Encounters in Georgia’s Spanish Period” and the Society produced an accompanying lesson plan for teachers. Part of the background text reads:

We may never know exactly how the first meeting went between Spanish explorers and Native American Indians in Georgia. However, archaeologists have found enough evidence to get a pretty good idea.

At first, it seems that Indian people tried to understand the Spanish strangers in traditional ways. Before the Spanish showed up, the Indians had given certain objects special meaning. Some goods were so unique that they were considered to have a really high value. Goods like these were owned and controlled by the leaders of the Indian chiefdoms. They included objects that were rare or hard to make like shell beads and monolithic axes. These items were so special that they were buried with their owners.

When the Spanish showed up, they brought brand new goods made of brand new materials that the Indians had never seen before. These new things were made of materials like iron and glass, and they included objects like beads and tools. At first, the Spanish only traded with the Indians leaders. The new European objects were considered to be just as special as the traditional high status goods. They too were kept in special places and buried with the few elite Indians who owned them.

Early Spanish visitors came with different plans. Some came to search the land for gold and riches. Others came to capture native Indians to be used as slaves. Still other Spanish visitors came to set up permanent colonies in Georgia so that they could stay and control the land.

The first known meeting between Indians and the Spanish happened in 1526. A Spanish explorer named Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón tried to start a new Spanish settlement on the coast of Georgia. He brought 600 people with him. The new town didn’t last for long however. After only six weeks, the colony broke apart because of many hardships and disagreements.

Archaeologists have no firm evidence where Ayllón’s colony actually was but European goods have been found near the coast. They were found through archaeology conducted on Indian burial mounds. These excavations revealed artifacts like beads, coins, and iron tools.

Click here to download the lesson plan on this topic.

The Society for Georgia Archaeology’s 2007 lesson plan focused on Fort Hawkins. As the lesson plan notes:

Fort Hawkins is located near the Ocmulgee River and served as an important center for the frontier of Georgia from 1806-1819. It was named after Benjamin Hawkins, a white man appointed by President Washington to be an Indian Agent. Hawkins determined the fort’s location and served the nation as a liaison between the U.S. government and the Creek Nation. Hawkins was given the title Principal Temporary Agent for Indian Affairs South of the Ohio River. His 21-year career was spent monitoring and working to maintain peace. Tensions between the Creeks and the settlers increased, as settlers continued to arrive illegally on Indian land. Frustrations soon boiled over to the event known as the Red Stick War. These events ultimately led to the signing of the Treaty of Washington in which the Creek Nation was forced to cede its remaining lands in Georgia. By 1827 the Creek no longer lived in Georgia.

The lesson plan describes the Fort and provides historic details about life at the fort and the archaeological and archival (especially military records) data on the Fort. Many “further reading” titles are also listed.

Click here to download a copy of this lesson plan.

The topic of the 2005 lesson plan, which meets CRCT Domains for 8th Grade History, is the Indian Removal of the early 1800s. The lesson plan details this period in Georgia’s history, suggests writing assignments, and explains how to make a puzzle called “Go Figure!” Click here to access the PDF of this lesson plan.

Euroamericans sought to remove Native Americans from southeastern North America in order to claim their lands, both for settlement and to prospect for minerals. The Native Americans had already ceded lands in what became eastern Georgia, and were occupying lands farther from the Atlantic coastline. The US government forcibly marched the Cherokees north and west to Oklahoma in 1838.

SGA’s 2004 lesson plan centered on republication of Frontiers in the Soil: The Archaeology of Georgia. The author, Roy S. Dickens, Jr., was a well-known archaeologist who worked in Georgia, and across southeastern North America. His engaging text is supported by the captivating artwork of James McKinley. The first edition, published in 1979, quickly sold out. SGA now owns the copyright to the book, and published a second edition with the assistance of the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

Click here for access to the 2004 lesson plan.

Read more about the book by clicking here.

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.

Long-time SGA member Rita Elliott edited this 1992 special issue of Early Georgia; its full title is ‚“Archaeology in the Classroom: By Teachers for Teachers—Used Archaeology: Practical Classroom Ideas for Teachers by Teachers.” Notes Ms. Elliott in the Foreward:

Welcome to a new partnership. The past decade has seen a growing relationship between the world of professional educators and professional archaeologists-a relationship that can be mutually beneficial. The growing crisis in our schools, symbolized by low test scores, high drop-out rates, drugs, violence, and boredom, and fueled by economic problems, decreases in federal and state educational funding, latch-key students, single-parent families, students living below the poverty level, lack of role models, and over-indulgence in television, has thrown educators into a precarious and unenviable position.

At the same time, archaeologists are struggling with major assaults on non-renewable cultural resources throughout the country. Intensive development, particularly in the Sunbelt region of the southeastern United States, destroys countless archaeological sites daily-sites unprotected by federal and state laws. Site vandals and “looters” trash archaeological sites while searching for intact or unusual artifacts that they hope will bring a hefty price in the collectors’ market. An increasingly weak economy has led to major cutbacks in government and private grants supporting archaeological research.

The unpleasant dilemmas faced by both educators and archaeologists have resulted in an amazing revelation. These two seemingly unconnected problems can be addressed simultaneously. Archaeology is a wonderful medium for enticing students to learn because it is exciting, adventurous, and mysterious. Archaeology is the perfect vehicle for educators because its multidisciplinary nature allows it to address many of the Quality Core Curriculum objectives mandated by the state of Georgia, including visual arts, science, English and Language Arts, Mathematics, and Social Studies. It improves students’ skills in logic, interpretation, research, and problem solving while enabling students to become aware and tolerant of other cultures, work together in groups, improve self-confidence, and actually discover that learning can be fun!

Students, however, are not the only beneficiaries of an archaeology curriculum in the classroom. Archaeologists finally will be able to enjoy the rewards of a grass-roots archaeological education. An educated and informed public is a public that will support legislative protection of archaeological sites. It is a public that will slowly turn from artifact collectors to site recorders, from purchasers of illegally obtained artifacts to prosecutors of site vandals. Some in the archaeological community protest the introduction of archaeology into the school system on the basis that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. What better rebuttal is there than examining the status quo? Dedicated educators (and everyone who embraces an archaeology curriculum) know and stress the importance of site preservation, ethics, and professional supervision. What better or more numerous heralds could the professional community have than educators throughout the state and the country?

Volume 20, Number 1 of Early Georgia‚ “Used Archaeology: Practical Classroom Ideas for Teachers, by Teachers” has been prepared with the goals of both educators and archaeologists at the forefront. It is hoped that it will help fill a void in the state of Georgia and perhaps be a useful model or stepping stone for others with the same aims.

This issue has two main sections. The first has a series of first-person experiences authored by teachers who have used archaeology in the classroom. The second main section discusses a series of archaeologically-related activities teachers have found successful in their classrooms.

Click here to download a PDF copy of this issue.