Board of Directors

Chair: Dennis Blanton, Atlanta

Curator of Native American Archaeology at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta.

Stephen Hammack, Macon

Mr. Hammack graduated from East Carolina University with an M.A. in Maritime Studies (History and Underwater Archaeology). He has worked extensively throughout the Southeast, and has also performed fieldwork in New York and Bermuda. Presently he is the on-site archaeologist at Robins AFB, near his hometown of Macon, and helps to manage 57 sites—16 of which are eligible for listing on the National Register—as well as 26 eligible historic buildings. Mr. Hammack organized and serves as Secretary of the Ocmulgee Archaeological Society (OAS), the SGA chapter serving Middle Georgia. He leads and conducts research for the OAS’s Ocmulgee River Basin Archaeological Project (ORBAP), which includes holding Artifact ID Days throughout the various counties of the mid-state, making site visits to document known and unknown sites and cemeteries, conducting historical research and underwater archaeological exploration in the Ocmulgee River, and searching for the lost Creek Indian towns that were along the river from ca. 1686-1716.

Tammy Forehand Herron, Edgefield, South Carolina

Mrs. Herron has a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Anthropology from Georgia Southern University. She currently serves as Curator for the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program (SRARP), a position that she has held since late 1997. Prior to being hired as an Archaeological Field Technician with the SRARP in the early 1990s, Mrs. Herron was employed as a Field Technician with the USDA Forest Service in Gainesville, Georgia where she conducted fieldwork in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests. Aside from her duties as Curator, she has been conducting research of the George Galphin site at Silver Bluff Plantation in Aiken County, SC. The site is revealing interesting details of colonial life in South Carolina and Georgia, as Galphin later established another trading post near present-day Louisville, Georgia. Mrs. Herron is long term member of the Augusta Chapter of SGA.

Pamela J. Baughman, Griffin

Ms. Baughman graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Georgia and, while a student, worked for the Georgia Archaeological Site Files. Following graduation, she was employed by the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program as a field technician/field crew chief on archaeological survey and testing projects. She has worked in Curation for the Augusta Museum of History and other historic sites, and is an active member of numerous local, state, and regional archaeological societies/organizations. Ms. Baughman received her M.A. from the University of Alabama and is currently employed as an archaeologist with the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Brian Floyd, Douglas

Mr. Floyd has an Associates degree from Florida Community College at Jacksonville. He has worked for several CRM firms in Florida and South Georgia since the late 1990s doing all phases of archaeology work and specializing in lab work. In addition he did artifact illustration and constructed archaeology equipment. Mr. Floyd also gained experience on the job in wetland delineation, endangered species surveys and monitoring, GPS, and computer graphics (using AutoCAD LT and ArcMap programs). Mr. Floyd has volunteered on a number of archaeology projects and helped researchers in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida since the late 1990s. He has studied and demonstrated primitive technology for parks, schools, and museums since the early 1990s and replicates artifacts for museums and private collectors. He also conducts experimental archaeology to help researchers answer questions that arise. He is a member of the Society of Primitive Technology, SGA, and the South Georgia Archaeological Research Team (SOGART). Presently Mr. Floyd is self-employed doing computer graphics, wetland delineation, and occasionally archaeology projects with numerous clients including the Fernbank Museum of Natural History and Southeastern Horizons, Inc.

Kevin Kiernan, St. Simons Island

Kevin Kiernan is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, where he taught for 35 years. As a medievalist he has written books and articles based on international archival research; as a specialist in humanities computing he has edited an electronic edition of Beowulf and has directed or co-directed several projects funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In 2005, Kiernan retired to St. Simons Island, where he has worked with Fred Cook on several prehistoric and historic sites, including what is now 9GN343, a long-occupied prehistoric Indian site in the Mayor of Brunswick’s backyard. He has also taken the Fernback field school, working with Dennis Blanton on the Santa Isabel de Utinahica project. Kiernan presented his first archaeological paper, on ‚“Polynomial Texture Mapping and Image-Based Encoding for Archaeological Projects,” at the August 2008 meeting of SOGART in Douglas, Georgia.

Lynn Marie Pietak, Atlanta

Dr. Pietak received an M.A. in Anthropology from New York University and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia. Her dissertation examined early historic period Delaware Indians in the Middle Atlantic. She worked from 1995-2003 as a Senior Archaeologist at Garrow & Associates, and later, TRC, in Atlanta. Dr. Pietak now heads Edwards-Pitman Environmental’s Archaeology Department. Edwards-Pitman has recently completed a large-scale data recovery at 9CK1, the Long Swamp site on the Etowah River. Public involvement was a key component of this project, which was undertaken for GDOT. Dr. Pietak has been a member of SGA since she came to work in Georgia, but looks forward to taking a more active role in the organization. She is also a member of SEAC, SAA, and the American Society for Ethnohistory.

Charlotte A. (Sammy) Smith, Atlanta

Sammy began doing archaeology as an undergraduate in the mid-1970s, and worked part-time at her school’s museum. Since then, she’s done contract archaeology in many states east of the Rockies, including field, laboratory, and archival activities. She arrived in Georgia in the early 1980s and eventually received her Ph.D. in anthropology from UGA. Subsequently, she’s primarily been self-employed at her firm, Archaeofacts. Sammy has broad experience with many facets of archaeology, and works near-daily with information technologies and the internet. She is a member of SGA’s Greater Atlanta chapter and once was a member of the (now-defunct) Athens chapter. She established SGA’s first website, helped produce The Profile for some years, conceived of and contributed to the 2001 “Resources at Risk” issue of Early Georgia, and is a past President of the Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists.

David Mincey, Lizella/Roberta

Dave is the current President of the SGA’s Ocmulgee Chapter. He’s also an attorney by day and a lifelong student of Georgia archaeology. He says: “My interest in archaeology initially came through my grandmother who showed me how to hunt ‘arrowheads’ in plowed ground on my grandparents’ farm near Lizella, Georgia.”

Ex-officio, Carolyn Rock, Woodbine

Ms. Rock has an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Georgia. Her major experience for the last ten years has been along the Georgia coast through contract archaeology, historical archaeology and archival research. As an assistant archivist for the Bryan-Lang Historical Library, Ms. Rock was introduced to local community planning and grants funding. Ms. Rock is SGA’s immediate Past President.

Officers

President: Dennis Blanton, Atlanta

(Biography above.)

Vice-President and President-Elect: Catherine Long, Lawrenceville

Ms. Long received her Masters degree in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, specializing in Historic Archaeology. She also holds a Museum Management Certificate from the University and is currently the Education Program Coordinator at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. She started her career as a field and laboratory technician at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and later worked for Atlanta-based TRC and New South Associates. Through her membership with SGA, the Archaeological Association of South Carolina, Society for Historical Archaeology, and Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society where she serves on the Board of Directors, Ms. Long has assisted with numerous outreach events and presentations at conferences.

Secretary: Thomas H. Gresham, Athens

Mr. Gresham has a M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Georgia and is President of Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., of Athens. His strengths include past service as Editor of The Profile, past service as president of the Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists, current president of Historic Oglethorpe County, and member of Georgia Council on American Indian Concerns.

Treasurer: Rick Sellers, Atlanta

Rick has made a career of banking but also studied anthropology at the University of Georgia, and attended field school at the King Site in northwest Georgia.

Other Officials of the SGA

Parliamentarian: Elizabeth Shirk, Alpharetta

Environmental Review Coordinator, Georgia Historic Preservation Division. M.A. Anthropology, University of Georgia. Past President, the Society for Georgia Archaeology.

Managing Editor, Early Georgia: David Hally, Athens

Professor of Anthropology, University of Georgia. Ph.D. Harvard University.

Editor, Early Georgia: Thomas Pluckhahn, Tampa, Florida

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida. Ph.D., University of Georgia.

Editor, The Profile: Larissa Thomas, Atlanta

Archaeology Program Manager, TRC. Ph.D. Anthropology, SUNY Binghamton.