In 2012, Edwards-Pitman Environmental conducted a Phase I survey of McDonough Road in Fayette and Clayton counties for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) under contract with American Engineers, Inc. The work included systematic shovel testing and metal detection along the nine kilometer project corridor from SR 54 in the west to Tara Boulevard near Lovejoy in the east. Dan Elliott of the LAMAR Institute helped with the metal detector survey. This project documented archaeological remnants of the western extent of the Battles of Lovejoy Station Battlefield.

Read SGA President Catherine Long’s first-person story of adventuring from the Atlanta area to Douglas to attend meetings on the 17–18th August, 2012. En route, she stopped and toured the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site in Irwin County, and discovered that one of the tales she had heard about Mr. Davis…well, read the full story and find out!

The Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance, Inc. and Georgia’s Historic Preservation Division (HPD) are partnering in a public archaeology project at the Lyon Farm in DeKalb County. The public is invited to attend and participate in excavations planned over two weekends in 2012. Fieldwork is designed to 1) locate cabins that housed slaves prior to the Civil War; and 2) uncover evidence of Creek settlement prior to the establishment of Lyon Farm around 1800. You must notify HPD ahead of time if you want to participate in this fieldwork.

This Weekly Ponder considers what archaeological resources are, and what it means to conserve them, using two examples. Earlier this month, the Secretary of the Interior awarded a 2011 Partners in Conservation Award to the Camp Lawton Preservation Team, which has been working to investigate and conserve this recently rediscovered Confederate prisoner of war camp that’s near Millen. The second example is the joint effort by The Israel Museum in Jerusalem and Google to put digital images of the Dead Sea Scrolls online; five are now accessible.

Make a field trip to Athens and check out the Civil War-period double barreled cannon on the top of the highest hill downtown, on the northeast corner of the grounds of the old city hall. Consider visiting the cannon on 22 October 2011, as well as attending the SGA’s Fall Meeting that day and the Society’s silent and live auctions in the evening. Click here for more information on the Fall Meeting.

Georgia Southern University’s archaeology team has announced more artifacts that have been identified from Camp Lawton. Camp Lawton was a Confederate prisoner of war camp located just outside of Millen. The camp was occupied for only six weeks before evacuations began in the middle of the night on November 26, 1864, as the Union army approached during Sherman’s March to the Sea. “The amount of artifacts and the variety of artifacts we are finding at this site is stunning,” said Georgia Southern archaeology professor and director of the project Dr. Sue Moore. Dr. Moore is a Past President of the Society for Georgia Archaeology. This story considers a trade token found by archaeologists that was issued in 1863 by a grocer-wholesaler in Niles, Michigan.

Consider how quantities of fine-grained data obtained through careful, well-documented excavation can be integrated to investigate broader questions of socio-political evolution. Consider how the scale of data and the research questions you can ask using them are related.

In his Memoirs, General William T. Sherman provides a detailed description of the rifle-trenches soldiers from both sides occupied while fighting near Kennesaw Mountain—and elsewhere—during the Civil War. Today, we consider the remains of these trenches archaeological features. What would you expect them to look like archaeologically—if they have survived the nearly one-and-a-half centuries since 1864?

Stone Mountain Park Lecture Series is hosting their last free lecture in the series entitled Current Research in the Archaeology of the Atlanta Campaign, hosted by the Stone Mountain Historical Society. The speaker is Garrett Silliman of Edwards-Pitman Environmental, Inc. The lecture is located inside Stone Mountain Park at Memorial Hall and starts at 7:15pm, Thursday, August 11, 2011.

The Sesquicentennial anniversary of the Civil War began this year. The SGA marked this event with this year’s theme of Georgia Archaeology Month, Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War Through Archaeology, held in May. You can also rediscover the Civil War through digital maps available online, by matching them to maps and satellite views of the same landscape today. Try it yourself!

The SGA’s eighteenth annual Georgia Archaeology Awareness promotion, Archaeology Month 2011, had as its theme Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War Through Archaeology. The Governor proclaimed May Archaeology Month, at a signing attended by several SGA members. The spring meeting was held on Saturday, May 14th in McDonough. Attendees spent the day socializing and listening to several presentations. On Sunday, attendees headed to Nash Farm Battlefield and Museum, and also the Historical Museum in Heritage Park and Veterans Wall of Honor. The SGA thanks our co-sponsors and all who helped this meeting to be such a success.

The Society for Georgia Archaeology proudly presents the 2011 Lesson Plan—“Learning Through Archaeology: Rediscovering the Civil War in Georgia.” This plan was developed based on the Georgia Archaeology Month theme—Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War Through Archaeology. The Plan explores the meaning of archaeology and reveals facts relating to the Civil War in Georgia. The featured archaeological site is Nash Farm Battlefield, in Henry County near McDonough. The largest cavalry charge in the history of Georgia happened here in 1864. Classroom activities include suggestions for making hardtack or other foods consumed by soldiers and using copies of historic Civil War photographs to consider the archaeological sites the people and material culture in the images would have left behind.

May is Archaeology Month in Georgia, and this year’s theme is Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War through Archaeology. SGA’s poster celebrating this theme can be downloaded by clicking here. The bibliographic references for the extensive and informative text on the back of the poster are downloadable by clicking here. Please join us at the SGA’s 2011 Spring Meeting on Saturday, May 14th, at the Henry County Chamber of Commerce to learn more about how archaeology has supplied information about the Civil War that books, letters, and other records did not.

SGA President Catherine Long updates members of the SGA on current activities by the Society’s leaders. We’re getting ready for Archaeology Month 2011 and our associated Spring Meeting, planned for McDonough on May 13–15. The theme is Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War Through Archaeology. That’s not all, however; the SGA has many committees, including on Membership, Advocacy, the ArchaeoBus, Website and Communication, Chapter Relations, and the Endowment—and more. The SGA’s newest committee is charged with selling over 3500 copies of the 2nd—and final—edition of Frontiers in the Soil; look for details on ordering on this website soon! Catherine also requests volunteers to work on poster packaging.

Scull Shoals Heritage Festival organized by the Friends of Scull Shoals is planned for April 30th, 2011. It will be an exciting day with tours, crafts, food, old time music, entertainment and more. Scull Shoals is an historic and archaeological site on the Oconee River, between Athens and Greensboro. It was once a frontier village where Creek Indians and European pioneers lived in proximity (sometimes peacefully), and, later, the town used water power for mills, and the surrounding factory town.

How do you make money? How does a nation make money? Often, countries “make” money by printing it. The full story discusses a recent article by Ben Tarnoff in the New York Times online that reviews the decisions made from 1861 on by the Confederacy’s money managers to fund the war. The discussion goes on to consider short-term solutions that do not solve long-term problems.

Join National Military Park Historian Jim Ogden for a two-hour walking tour exploring some of the “hidden” history at the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District on Sunday, March 13th, beginning at 4 PM.

Join us on Saturday, May 14th for the Spring Meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology. The theme for Archaeology Month is Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War through Archaeology. Papers that focus on archaeological research in Georgia or the bordering states will be considered for the program. Each presenter should plan for a presentation of 20 minutes or less. Please submit your title and abstract (100 words) by March 15th. The meeting will be held at the Henry County Chamber of Commerce, McDonough. Details are in the full story.

The UGA Student Association for Archaeological Sciences is sponsoring an exciting, free event on Friday, February 18 at 6:00 pm in the UGA Zell Miller Learning Center, Room 171, on the UGA campus in Athens. Archaeologist Dr. Sue Moore, Georgia Southern University, will discuss “Sacred Ground: Archeology at Camp Lawton,” emphasizing recent investigations and new findings at Camp Lawton, a relatively unknown and recently re-discovered Confederate prison camp that operated in 1864 near Millen.

Mark your calendar and register now for the SGA’s Spring Meeting, which will be held May 13–15, 2011, in McDonough. Seating for Saturday’s meeting is limited, so be sure to return your registration form (click here) and check soon. This year, the theme for Georgia Archaeology Month is Gone But Not Forgotten: Rediscovering the Civil War through Archaeology. The full story includes exciting meeting details.

A January 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal by Cameron McWhirter discusses battlefield archaeology in the Kennesaw/Smyrna area, highlighting research by SGA’s own Garrett Silliman.

The Chattahoochee Valley Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration is a series of collaborative events staged by a wide variety of cultural institutions in the lower Chattahoochee River Valley area of Alabama and Georgia which will investigate the enduring legacy of the Civil War. Events are taking place in the spring and early summer of 2011.

Human beings are a busy species. We often change the landscape around us. We build homes and roads, we establish fields and dam up creeks. Over time, land use of a particular spot can change quite a bit. This story examines the land use of one hill about two miles east-northeast of downtown Atlanta. Land use change can be considered layers of history….

The New York Times has dipped into its archives and assembled an interactive timeline of stories and photographs from 1860 and throughout the Civil War period.

When Melissa Scharffenberg, a graduate student in archaeology at Georgia State University began contemplating thesis topics she was approached by the curator of the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. The curator asked if she would interpret the Lacy Hotel collection housed at the museum which she had previously researched and analyzed as an intern in 2007. Melissa thought her familiarity with the artifacts and history of the Lacy Hotel would make for a great thesis topic and provided the opportunity to start The Lacy Hotel Project which uses the combination of archaeological and historical data to document civilian life during the Civil War.

The Center for the Study of the Civil War Era cordially invites you to attend the 7th Annual Symposium on New Interpretations of the American Civil War, titled Alternative Southern Realities: African Americans and the American Civil War. The event is hosted by Kennesaw State University, and will be held on March 19–21, 2010. The symposium is open to the public. Registration is $25.

The Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society will start off the new year with a stimulating presentation by Garrett Silliman of Edwards-Pitman Environmental, Inc., titled Current Research in the Archaeology of the Atlanta Campaign. Mr. Silliman’s talk will be presented at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History on Clifton Road (just north of Ponce de Leon) on Tuesday, January 12th, beginning at 7:30 PM.

Google offers free software that delivers satellite images to your computer (if you have a fairly fast broadband connection and video card). This powerful software allows you to “fly” over the landscape (and the ocean!), and even to overlay historic maps over the modern terrain. Google offers instructional videos to teach you how to use their software. We examine a Civil War map “draped” over modern downtown Atlanta.

The staff at New South Associates (NSA) has been very busy this year. In addition to the following Georgia projects, our employees have been working on a variety of additional projects in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, New York, and Puerto Rico. The Berry Creek Site (9MO487) was investigated by R. Jeannine Windham [...]

Over the last three months, TRC has become very busy with a number of large archaeological projects across the Southeast. Here in Georgia, we’ve conducted archaeological investigations in Cobb, Coweta, Forsyth, Fulton, Gordon, Hall, Henry, Lowndes, and Whitfield counties. The most exciting project we’ve been working on is for a planned Civil War battlefield park [...]