Just recently two examples of archaeological remains coming to light that had been preserved beneath pavements have been in the news. One is the possible burial of a king in England. The other are human remains found beneath where a middle school was recently razed in the historic district of Brunswick. What do you think of paving over as a deliberate way to preserve archaeological remains?
The Golden Isles Archaeological Society will hold their February meeting Tuesday the 7th at St. Simons Elementary School in the Cafeteria at 7:00pm. The meeting will feature Ryan Sipe of Georgia Southern University and is titled Georgia’s Mission Frontier: The Life and Times of the Sixteenth Century Guale.
Ever wonder what an Indian mound was like in the late eighteenth century? In the mid-1770s, natural historian William Bartram traveled through what is now Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. He described his adventures in a 1793 volume Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws…. He describes a special round building the Cherokees used for important group activities. His architectural description gives a good idea of what careful archaeological excavation may reveal of a building like this.
The next meeting of the Golden Isles Archaeological Society will be at 7 PM on April 12th at the St. Simons Elementary School cafeteria, 805 Ocean Boulevard. Mack Carlton, GIAS member, will be the speaker. He will bring the story of the Pikes Bluff Battle. Read the March 2011 issue of The Antiquarian, the newsletter of the GIAS, by clicking here.
The SGA met on St. Simons Island, east of Brunswick, on a lovely fall weekend in mid-October, and explored archaeological sites there and in the SSI area. Enjoy dozens of pictures from the tour in the full story. The SGA thanks all who organized the trip, discussed the places we visited, and gave us permission to visit them—and to all non-members who joined our tour.
The 2010 Fall Meeting is a tour of prehistoric and historic archaeological and historical sites in the St. Simons Island area from Friday-Sunday, 15-17 October. The meeting formally begins in the Frederica Room at Sea Palms on Saturday morning. Registration 8-9 am; short orientation talks start at 9 am, before heading out on the tours. Pick up a printout of the agenda, with maps, at the 9 am orientation. Article includes suggestions for activities if you arrive early enough on Friday the 15th.
The University of Georgia Press has partnered with the Digital Library of Georgia to offer out-of-print history books free online. Take a look at the selection and read about Georgia’s past—for free!
In a simple operation, you can use Google Earth software (free!) to overlay historic maps with the modern landscape. Here we demonstrate how informative this operation can be using the British Library’s online copy of a 1562 historic map by Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez. We just examine North America’s southern Atlantic coastline, including the Georgia bight.
The 2010 SEAC Public Outreach Grant has been awarded to Fort Frederica National Monument, St. Simons Island, Georgia, for their project “Digging History” at Fort Frederica: Community Archaeology Festival. The festival features SGA’s ArchaeoBus.
Coastal Heritage Society archaeologists, supported by the NPS American Battlefield Protection Program, are investigating Revolutionary War archaeological sites throughout downtown Savannah. Read about their activities in their recently established blog, “Savannah Under Fire.” The blog has frequent updates, sometimes more than once per week!
Rice was an extremely important commercial crop in antebellum coastal Georgia. Yet, today, there’s very little rice grown in that area. This Weekly Ponder briefly considers the economic history of rice-growing along the Southeastern Coast, and looks at modern rice-farming in the USA a bit, too.
When the SGA leadership visited the coast in February 2010, many of us also toured Sapelo Island with archaeologist Dr. Ray Crook, who has worked on the island for decades. We took the morning ferry out underovercast skies, watched the sun arrive with us at the island dock, and returned to the mainland late in the afternoon. We took a break to enjoy a Geechee lunch at mid-day.
The SGA Board and Officers met on Saturday, February 6th, 2010, at the Ashantilly library, named after the home’s builder, Thomas Spalding. Ashantilly is a plantation just north of Darien. The SGA and its members owe a big debt of thanks to the wonderful, kind folks at the Ashantilly Center, who hosted our meeting.
What is iron gall ink? Parchment is a common term, but what is that ink? Colonial-period documents were commonly written in iron gall ink. Georgia’s copy of the Declaration of Independence was. Even Bach and Da Vinci used it! Read more about this ink in the full story. Find out how many kinds of trees it takes to make the ink, too!
The Coastal Heritage Society of Savannah has been sponsoring archaeological research on Revolutionary War archaeological sites across the city as part of the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program (your tax dollars at work!). The report of this highly successful research is now complete, and available as a downloadable PDF.
Next time you’re in Augusta, go downtown and visit the Springfield community. Springfield community is just west of the original downtown Augusta, right on the river. The community was a free African American community established around the time of the Revolutionary War. The heart of the community was and is Springfield Baptist Church, which was probably established between 1787 and 1793.
Period Time Subsistence Pattern Settlement Pattern Diagnostic Features Post war, global economy, information age AD 1945 to Present Corporate agriculture, international trade, service industry, and civil service Suburban-urbanization, second homes, rural abandonment Public works, transistors, interstate highways, disposable products, railroad abandonment, Teflon, computers Depression, recovery and war AD 1929 to AD 1945 Manufacturing, farming, retailing, [...]
In Fall 2007, SGA met at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center, 2020 Clean Water Drive (near The Mall of Georgia), Buford. The Search For Fort Daniel Jim D’Angelo, TRC and Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society The traditional location of one of Georgia’s early frontier forts, Fort Daniel, has been marked with a roadside historical sign [...]