When humans enter an ecosystem, they displace some species and prey upon others. This is true of both plants and animals, including species most of us don’t really notice (for example, nematodes in soil and rotifers in freshwater).

As human populations increase, and peoples intensify occupation of the environment (demographically, populations become denser), demands on environmental resources increase. The impacts of displacement and predation increase. They must; more people mean demands for food, shelter, and other material goods increase.

Photographs in this story are from the IUCN report.

In the Great Plains of North America, bison populations have decreased over the last two centuries—a response to increasing human populations and the consequences of that proliferation.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature is “a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries” (according to the IUCN website). In early March 2010, the IUCN released a report called American Bison: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010. The report discusses the current status of the American bison (Bison bison).

The American bison ranged across the Great Plains in large herds, browsing on the vast prairie grasslands. Notes the report, “there is little doubt that prior to Euroamerican settlement, plains bison numbered in the millions, and probably even in the tens of millions” (page 8).

Through the late 1800s, bison herds were hunted commercially, to “open” lands for colonization by peoples from the east. There was also sport hunting. Environmental factors, including introduced bovine diseases, also reduced bison populations. Their numbers became so diminished that in 1905 the American Bison Society was formed and sought to establish bison herds at several federal landholdings (page 9).

Chapter 2 of the report, downloadable from this webpage, discusses bison prehistory and history, including the species’ original range. On page 11, the report notes:

With increased resolution and clarity afforded by ethnohistoric and ethnographic investigations, human-bison interactions among historic native peoples are better described and documented than for the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Bison continued to be the preferred game for many native North American cultures, especially on the Great Plains and Prairies, providing food, clothing, shelter, and tools…. Sustained by bison and plant resources, many native groups likely affected densities of other large herbivore species…. In addition to significant ecological relationships, the bison was a central element in oral tradition, rituals, dances, and ceremonies of native peoples of the Plains…, and it remains symbolically important in the cultural traditions of many native Tribes to this day.

The arrival of Europeans in North America, after 1492, resulted in significant changes in human-bison interactions, and changed the fabric of Native American life forever. Introduced diseases such as smallpox decimated indigenous human populations…, and altered subsistence, settlement, demography, and social organisation for many different groups. Bison hunting by native people was seasonal in nature. Bison were incorporated into a broad spectrum of plant and animal procurement activities…. Bison provided the economic basis for stable, resilient land use regimes and social systems. However, effects of Native American warfare and raiding during the historic period disrupted and destabilised these land use and social systems. The spread of horses into Great Plains aboriginal economies by the 1750s, and increasing commoditisation of bison products caused by the emergence of a European commercial market for wildlife products by the 1820s, contributed to the near extinction of the bison…. Native peoples traded bison hides for Euro-american commodities, with the market in bison robes reaching a peak in the 1840s. Hide hunters began to significantly participate in the market hunting of plains bison in the 1850s, and by the 1890s had decimated the herds. Even bones were cleaned for sale to the eastern fertilizer market, an activity that continued to 1906….

The bison is now extirpated from its original range across North America. Extirpation is a word ecologists use to refer to a species that no longer exists naturally in a particular area. In the case of the American bison, it no longer roams wild across an unlimited range, so it is considered extirpated—although it is not extinct. Extinct, in this context, means individuals of that species no longer exist.

Now, however, modern land use, including roads, communities, fields, and fenced pastures, mean that today’s bison cannot roam and graze as they did prior to this development. As the IUCN report notes:

Bison can best achieve their full potential as an evolving, ecologically interactive species in large populations occupying extensive native landscapes where human influence is minimal and a full suite of natural limiting factors is present. While such conditions remain available in the north of the continent, it is challenging to find extensive landscapes for restoring and sustaining large free-roaming wild bison populations in southern, agriculture-dominated regions. [page 2]

In the final summary, the report concludes:

The next 10-20 years present opportunities for conserving American bison as a wild species and restoring it as an important ecological presence in many North American ecosystems. Taking an ecosystem approach, which puts people and their natural resource use practices at the centre of decision-making, offers a paradigm for balancing the sometimes competing demands of bison conservation, the use of bison and biological diversity by people, and sustaining human communities in areas where there are many resource users combined with important natural values. To achieve ecological restoration at broad scales (large herds roaming across vast landscapes, at numerous locations) will require flexible approaches that can be adapted to a variety of legal and socio-economic conditions. Assembling large landscapes for conservation herds will typically involve several land tenure holders, potentially including public agencies, tribal governments, non-profit private organisations, and for-profit corporations or individual entrepreneurs. Diverse mandates, interests, and incentives will influence how stakeholders choose to manage land and wildlife, including bison. Creative new approaches are needed for forging enduring partnerships among land tenure holders for cooperative undertakings. Strategies may range from top-down government programmes to bottom-up market-based or cultural-based initiatives. Progress towards large-scale restoration will require a much more supportive framework of government policies and significant investment by both public and private sectors. Awareness and substantial public support are necessary at both the local level where restoration occurs, and among national constituencies for whom the bison is an iconic component of North America’s natural and cultural heritage. For ecological restoration of bison to be successful, careful assessment and understanding of biophysical, social, economic, legal, and political conditions are required for planning and implementation. This is particularly true where both community and agency support and involvement are required. This chapter provided guidelines for planning and implementing an ecological restoration project for bison, including feasibility assessment, selection of stock, preparation and release methods, assessing socio-economic and legal requirements, monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation. [page 112]

Although viable preservation of the species is the focus of the IUCN report, it also provides a good summary of the past of the American bison in North America, including a review of our understanding of human occupation of the Great Plains. Bison are known archaeologically from the Southeast, and bison trails are commonly believed to have been been incorporated into networks of human foot-trails (which later became the routes of roads and railroads).

Why do you think bison trails would have been used by humans?

Perhaps you watched Steve Jobs and other Apple people introduce the iPad on 27 January 2010…. Fans of archaeology might have noted that one of the major demonstrations, of the program Keynote (does a better job of making presentations than the Microsoft program Powerpoint), used the topic “Seven Wonders of the World,” which focused on selected archaeological sites.

Clearly, many people put considerable thought into deciding what to use to demonstrate this new machine.

What does it mean that they chose an archaeological topic to punch their high-profile product introduction?

Here’s the link to watch video-on-demand introducing the iPad….

A visit to the Bartow History Museum is indeed a trip back in time!

The museum documents the history of northwest Georgia’s Bartow County, spanning more than two hundred years since the Cherokee were the area’s primary residents. Artifacts, photographs, documents and a variety of interactive exhibits tell the story of settlement, Cherokee Removal, Civil War strife and lifestyles of the past.

The Bartow History Museum offers school programs, adult workshops, summer day camps, lectures and book signings, archives and much more. The hours are Monday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm.

The BHM is at 13 North Wall Street, in downtown Cartersville.

For more information on the BHM, check their website by clicking here.

There is an admission fee if you’re not a BHM member.

Quick: what is the only installation built by the United States military during the settling of the interior of the continent to protect Indians from Indians (rather than settlers from Native Americans, or for some other purpose)?

Out in the middle of North America, in what is now the state of Nebraska, near the North Loup River, near the modern community of Elyria, is a Plains infantry outpost called Fort Hartsuff. The outpost was active from 1874–1881. Since some of the major buildings were constructed with concrete-like walls, they have survived to this day. Fort Hartsuff is now a Nebraska State Historical Park.

In short, the Pawnee were an agricultural peoples in the 1850s, growing crops and supplementing their foodstuffs with meat from seasonal bison hunts. Because they were semi-sedentary, they were afflicted more European diseases like cholera and small pox than their nomadic neighbors, the Lakota Sioux. During this period, the Lakota population increased, they gained hunting territory, and harassed the Pawnee.

As Gary Wells notes:

By 1857, the Pawnee were so destitute that they signed the Treaty of Table Creek, giving up rights to all of their land in Nebraska in exchange for a small reservation of thirty miles along the Loup River, fifteen miles wide (present day Nance County), small annual payments and protection from the Lakota, by the U.S. Army.  The U.S. Government did a poor job fulfilling their part of the treaty, as the Civil War diverted money and soldiers away from the west.  Retaliation for the Pawnee against the Lakota finally came in 1864, when the Department of the Platte (district army headquarters) requested Pawnee volunteers to join the Army in their fight against the Sioux and Cheyenne, under the command of Frank North, as the Pawnee Scouts.  Frank had worked at the Pawnee Agency for many years and spoke fluid Pawnee.  He and his brother Luther North led the Pawnee Scouts on numerous engagements, including protecting the workers building the Transcontinental Railroad in Nebraska, and removing the Cheyenne from the Republican Valley in the Campaign of 1869, with General Carr commanding and Buffalo Bill Cody as scout.  During this campaign, Major Frank North was credited with the killing of the Cheyenne Chief Tall Bull, at the Battle of Summit Springs, and honored by the Nebraska Legislature in 1870 for his part in the Campaign.  The Pawnee called him the “Great White Father”.

Few settlers had pushed into the Loup River Valley before 1870, probably due to the proximity of the Pawnee Reservation on the lower Loup.  Even though the Pawnee were relatively harmless, it would have taken real courage for early settlers to travel through their villages, to reach the rich farmland beyond.  That same year, the Paul brothers (J.N. and N.J.) and the North brothers (Frank and Luther) departed from Columbus with a small group of men, and went up the Loup to the forks on a hunting trip.  That trip resulted in dreams of a cattle ranch and the determination to establish a new county called “Howard”.

Once Howard County was formed, it drew new settlers into the Loup Valley, but the Lakota were still using the trail down the Loup River Valleys, to raid the Pawnee on their reservation.  The Norths and the Pauls knew that these new settlers would need to be protected, so a request was sent to General C. C. Auger (Christopher Columbus Auger), commander of the Department of the Platte, in Omaha, to send troops.  The government had been lax on protecting the Pawnee, but with the white settlers in danger, two companies of soldiers were dispatched.

It took a while for Fort Hartsuff to be established. Wells continues:

By early September of 1874, the new permanent fort construction was underway.  It was across the river near the famous trail on present-day Bean Creek.  By December of 1874 some of the new fort’s buildings were complete.  All government supplies, soldiers and tentage had been removed to the new site and Camp Ruggles was soon forgotten to all but a few.

This new permanent fort was not to be made out of wood, but a lime, gravel and cement mixture, resembling today’s concrete.  Rather than transport large amounts of lime from eastern Nebraska, the quartermaster advertised locally for a contractor to supply the lime.  Joseph “Doc” Beebe, a close friend and neighbor of the North family in Columbus, bid and won the contract.  Doc built three lime kilns in the hills east of the North Loup River in northern Howard County (east of present day Cotesfield) and burned chalk-rock, taken form the nearby side-hills, in the kilns, using wood from the surrounding canyons, to produce his quick-lime product. (All three kilns are still visible today.)

On completion of Fort Hartsuff, Doc Beebe started construction of a two-story hotel, using the same construction techniques used at the fort.  The new hotel became known as the “Concrete Hotel” or the “Half-Way House”, as it was on the main supply road, half-way between Fort Hartsuff and the rail line in Grand Island. The eighty-mile trip was too long to travel in one day, so those traveling back and forth would stop at the Half-way House to eat and spend the night.

Portrayal of Native American life on Jekyll Island (original painting by Melissa Crawford, Art Major at the University of West Georgia).

People have called the small barrier island now known as Jekyll home for many centuries, but only the most obvious and recent reminders of that history are usually recognized today. Each year thousands of visitors are introduced to the splendid “cottages” and manicured landscapes of the Jekyll Island Club and their connection with the rich and famous industry giants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many also see the ruins of tabby structures that stand as silent memorials to English colonization of the Georgia coast during the 18th century and to the later plantation endeavors of the French owners of the island, the DuBignon family.

As important as these historic resources are, they represent only part of the total cultural heritage of Jekyll Island. What now stands above the ground is a fraction of the fragile evidence that marks this island’s remarkable past. Much more survives below the ground as archaeological evidence—the buried structural elements, landscape features, artifacts and food remains from the day to day lives of people over the millennia. At least 95 percent of the total patrimony of the island preceded British interests here. This place was the home of Native Americans for more than 4000 years before the first European arrived. Their history is Jekyll Island’s hidden cultural heritage, a past marked by traces of oyster shell on the ground surface and the buried archaeological remains left behind by countless generations.

Archaeological research has been undertaken from time to time on Jekyll Island for over 50 years, providing a basic sketch of the island’s cultural history. Dozens of archaeological sites have been recorded through survey efforts and limited excavations on the island and its nearby hammocks. The best-known historic sites—Horton House and Millionaire’s Village—were also the locations of major prehistoric sites, indicating that these high-ground areas that are easily accessible by water have remained prime real estate for many centuries. Other, mostly smaller, prehistoric settlements are located elsewhere on the island where good access was offered to important food resources.

The earliest known Native American occupation of Jekyll Island was by an early foraging culture associated with the St. Simons phase. Dating to as early as 2400 B.C., these people may have lived in permanent settlements used as central bases for collecting estuarine, riverine, and oak-forest food resources during a time of rising sea levels and evolving ecosystems. Overall population density was low all along the coast, with groups living on the barrier islands in settlements atop and around shell rings (large ring-shaped mounds of oyster shells and other food refuse) and along freshwater rivers on top of large shell mounds (which also were deposits shell and other refuse). Occupation was concentrated on the northern end of Jekyll Island at this time, perhaps the result of short-term visits by foraging groups from large nearby sites on St. Simons Island. However, the possibility exists that a shell ring may have been located along the northern edge of Jekyll Island in an area that now has been submerged by rising sea level and eroded by tidal actions and currents.

When sea level dropped to a temporary low-stand around 1,000 B.C., there were dramatic changes in the coastal ecosystem and St. Simons phase settlements were disrupted and their populations dispersed. An archaeological culture known as the Refuge phase then developed along the coast, perhaps representing descendents of the St. Simons phase groups, but no sites of this period have been recorded on Jekyll Island.

Occupation resumed on Jekyll Island sometime between roughly 500 B.C. and A.D. 700. Probably the first to resettle the island were small bands of semi-nomadic hunters-fishers-gatherers who were seasonal visitors to the island during the Deptford phase. These people overlapped with others of a different cultural tradition known as Swift Creek, marked by groups who immigrated to the coast from inland areas of Georgia. The largest identified Swift Creek settlement was located in the interior of the island and contained an earthen burial mound.

Sporadic occupation on the island occurred during the following Wilmington phase, beginning about A.D. 700 and continuing for some 300 years. Very little is known about the genesis of this culture and its adaptive patterns anywhere along the Georgia coast. It is suspected that small residential groups visited the island intermittently during this time for hunting, fishing, and gathering purposes.

Intensive Native American settlement occurred on Jekyll Island during the Savannah phase, beginning about A.D. 1000 and perhaps continuing until Spanish contact. This was associated with large populations who lived in permanent villages and had a mixed economy based upon horticulture (growing maize, beans, and squash) along with substantial reliance on estuarine and oak forest resources. A central adaptive characteristic of this socially and politically complex culture was the periodic movement of family groups from their villages during the year to harvest seasonally available resources in other areas. The prehistoric archaeological sites at the Horton House and Millionaires Village date primarily to the Savannah phase and, although severely disturbed in places by historical construction activities, they are two of the largest and most complex Native American settlements on Jekyll Island.

Little information is available about Native American occupation on Jekyll Island during the early historic period. The island was known to the Spaniards as the Isla de Ballenas (Island of Whales) and while 17th-century Franciscan missions among the Mocama natives evidently were located to the north on St. Simons Island and to the south on Cumberland Island, none were reported on Jekyll Island. However, archaeological evidence indicates there was a native presence on the island during the 16th and 17th centuries. Irene phase and Mission period native pottery types, more common at sites associated with the Guale in areas north of Jekyll Island, are rare but present at some of Jekyll’s archaeological sites. Pottery vessels associated with the Mocama in more southern areas of the Georgia coast appear to be very similar to earlier Savannah phase wares, suggesting the possibility that some sites on Jekyll Island now assigned to the late prehistoric period may contain materials that actually reflect Native American occupations during the Spanish Mission period.

Only the barest of details about Jekyll Island’s Native American past are known and much remains to be learned about this heritage. Archaeologists now have many more questions than they do answers. Buried beneath the feet of visitors to Jekyll Island is a complex and multidimensional puzzle of archaeological evidence, each piece an irreplaceable clue about the lives of people in the distant past who once called this island their home. As archaeological methods and scientific techniques advance, more and more will be learned about this hidden past and our lives in the present will be enriched by a better understanding of that heritage. However, the pieces of our puzzle are fragile and once destroyed are forever lost. In recognition of their importance to current and future generations, archaeological sites of Jekyll Island are protected under Georgia laws and Federal statutes, with civil and criminal penalties for their destruction or disturbance.

An artifact of Jekyll Island’s history of tourism.

Jekyll Island, owned by the people of Georgia and managed on their behalf by the Jekyll Island Authority, is a natural and cultural treasure to be both enjoyed and protected. Visitors to our remarkable island should be aware of the past hidden beneath their feet, marvel at its mysteries and untold stories, always act to sustain rather than disturb it, and walk away as advocates for archaeological preservation. The past is present on Jekyll Island and its legacies precious.

Early European settlers were impressed by the productivity and sustainability of Native American agriculture in the Northeast. Today, as farmers begin to come to grips with the consequences of modern, mechanized agriculture, i.e., soil compaction, erosion, the run-off of fertilizers and top soil, and the cost of petro-chemicals to boost production, agronomists and some Native Americans are revisiting the techniques of 300 years ago to test their advantages.

This is how David J. Minderhout and Andrea T. Franz begin their article, “Native American Horticulture in the Northeast,” published in the Spring 2009 General Anthropology Bulletin of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association, available here (currently free from Wiley InterScience).

They briefly summarize archaeologists’ current understanding of prehistoric agriculture and food preparation in Northeastern North America, with an eye to modern practices and our current food production situation. They note, for example, that, “Research also shows that intercropping, i.e., growing several crops in the same field, produces a diverse plant environment that is more resistant to drought and attacks by pests and plant diseases.”

One message that can be drawn from the information these authors present is that pre-modern innovations, methods, and techniques can provide us with important lessons relevant to the present.

The American Anthropological Association was founded in 1902 and “is the world’s largest organization of individuals interested in anthropology,” according to their website. Membership is approximately 10,000, with annual meetings attended by around 5000 individuals.

The University of Georgia Libraries have a special section called the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Among the materials available there is a rare map collection. Some of the maps have been scanned and are available in digital form online.

This is the eastern portion of a 1796 map (labeled Negative 4911; the author is Tanner). The original depicts roads or trails and rivers from the Georgia Coast westward to the Mississippi River. Indians still held the interior, but the map shows the encroachment of Euroamericans from both the Atlantic and, to some degree, the Gulf Coasts.

This item is in the Rare Map Collection online, in the group of maps called “Frontier to New South.” Click here for that listing.

What other interesting materials can you find in the online collections held by the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library?

Georgia’s Secretary of State’s website includes useful reference materials including the Georgia Archives. Current featured content on that website includes the Virtual Vault, which, the website says:

is your portal to some of Georgia’s most important historical documents, from 1733 to the present. The Virtual Vault provides virtual access to historic Georgia manuscripts, photographs, maps, and government records housed in the state archives.

The “Touring Georgia” section of the Virtual Vault includes four photographs from around Clayton, including one of this lovely and bucolic farm.

While you are likely to expect digital versions of important government records, like tax digests and death certificates, take a look and see what else you find—and let us know what surprises you or what you’re glad you’ve found—online!

The Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta announces a lecture by SGA President and Fernbank Curator of Native American Archaeology Dennis Blanton, to be held on Sunday, November 1st, at 4 pm. The lecture is titled “De Soto’s Footsteps: New Archaeological Evidence in Georgia.”

The Fernbank press release says:

Hear first hand from Fernbank archaeologist Dennis Blanton as he discusses newly discovered Spanish artifacts and their significant contribution to our understanding of early Georgia History.

Fernbank archaeological expeditions have recovered elusive evidence of Europe’s expansion into the New World nearly 500 years ago. Rare artifacts of Spanish origin are turning up at an excavation in southeast Georgia where no one expected to see them. An unusually large number of metal objects and jewel-like glass beads, characteristic of the period 1500-1550, have been found in and around a surprisingly large Native American building. The findings are indicative of a place where initial, face-to-face contact occurred between exploring Spanish and native Indian people. The most plausible source of the Spanish artifacts is none other than the infamous conquistador, Hernando de Soto, who led a small army through the area of Georgia in 1540.

Access a PDF of the lecture announcement by clicking here.

You must pay the Museum admission fee to attend, unless you are a Museum member. Read more about the event at the Fernbank website by clicking here.

The Society for American Archaeology continues to monitor legislative actions, especially at the Federal level. In mid-June, the Society submitted a letter to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests regarding S. 409, Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2009, also known as the Apache Leap Conveyance bill.

The letter says that the bill:

would direct the Department of Agriculture to accept certain parcels of non-federal land in five counties in Arizona from Resolution Copper in exchange for federal land in Pinal County, Arizona, including Apache Leap and the Oak Flat Campground area, the latter in which mining activity is prohibited. It is our understanding that under the legislation Resolution Copper could then conduct mineral exploration and “block-cave” extraction activities beneath the surface of the Oak Flat and Apache Leap areas.

These lands include known archaeological sites and resources, as well as places significant to several Native American tribes. Additional, undiscovered sites are also likely to be present.

Block-cave mining is a technique where underground extraction is conducted such that surface materials “fall in” because the materials below them have been removed (essentially creating “sinkholes”). This kind of action would destroy and disturb archaeological remains.

The archaeological resources are now protected by numerous federal statutes, including the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and others. Transferral of the land would remove those protections, and has raised the concern of the SAA.

Thus, SAA recommends increased protections and that tribal stakeholders be allowed to continue traditional acorn gathering unimpeded by mineral extraction and extraction.

S. 409 is sponsored by Senator Jon Kyle of Arizona, and co-sponsored by John McCain, also of Arizona. Both Senators are Republicans.

Download a copy of the SAA’s letter from this webpage. It’s called “SAA Testimony on S. 409, the Apache Leap Conveyance bill,” and is dated June 17, 2009.

The SAA was founded in 1934 and has over 7000 members from all fifty states, and nations around the world.

Information about Subcommittee action on the bill is here. Information on the Senate bill is here. The related House bill is H.R. 2509, with four co-sponsors, all Arizona Representatives. Read about the House bill here.

In the 1820s, a syllabary of the Cherokee language became widely used. It’s inventor had a birth name of George Gist (or Guess), but by this time went by a Cherokee name pronounced something like Sikwayi or Sogwali, although it is commonly spelled Sequoyah.

John Noble Wilford, in the 22 June New York Times, reports that archaeologist Kenneth B. Tankersley, of the University of Cincinnati, has found fifteen identifiable characters from the syllabary carved into the wall of a cave in southeast Kentucky. Apparently, Sequoyah made several visits to the region, and spent time in the caves seeking inspiration.

These may be the earliest known examples of the syllabary, which Sequoyah may still have been developing. This written language is known as a syllabary because the symbols (analogous to the letters we use in English) represent syllables, not individual sounds. Sequoyah’s Cherokee syllabary has 85 characters.

Read Wilford’s New York Times article “Carvings From Cherokee Script’s Dawn” here.

Read Ted Wadley’s article on Sequoyah in the New Georgia Encyclopedia online here.

Read the Wikipedia entry on the Cherokee syllabary here.

Sequoyah image courtesy WikiMedia Commons, here.

Long time SGA member and primitive technology researcher Scott Jones has just published a book that is a compilation of his articles from the past decade related to primitive technology and experimental archaeology. Scott has practiced primitive technology for two decades and now makes a living presenting the subject to the general public (always with lots of examples and demonstrations) and by conducting experimental archaeology with CRM firms. He is a long time board member of the Society for Primitive Technology and is currently its president. He lives with his wife and son in rural (i.e., primitive) Oglethorpe County.

The book, entitled A View to the Past: Experience and Experiment in Primitive Technology, is a 277-page, soft bound collection of about 40 articles, most of which were originally published in the Bulletin of Primitive Technology. The articles are illustrated with numerous photographs and a few drawings and charts. They are organized into six chapters: foundation skills, making things fly, shelter, stone tools, regional perspectives in experimental archaeology and other musings. While there is a good bit of “how to” in many of the articles, Scott also addresses the “why” and “what does it mean” aspects of experimental work. The fact that Scott has an anthropology degree (UGA) and works with professional archeologists allows him to make a great many more anthropological observations from his work than most primitive technologists. Thus, while the articles on building a shelter, making a long bow, and fire starting will appeal to the general public, and especially young readers, these and most every article have important messages for the working archaeologist who is trying to interpret the anthropology of artifact assemblages. This is a very readable, interesting, and entertaining book that will appeal to a wide audience.

A View to the Past by Scott Jones is available from Createspace.

Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) archaeologists met in September at New Echota State Historic Site in Gordon County with members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) Elder’s Advisory Council and Federal Highway Administration to discuss the proposed bridge replacements and roadway improvements to State Route (SR) 225. Tribal elders and members of EBCI Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) traveled from Cherokee, North Carolina, to New Echota to discuss the proposed project, including the 2003 Traditional Cultural Property study, results of cultural resource surveys, and proposed mitigation measures such as context-sensitive design, archaeological data recovery (including a co-op program to provide Cherokee students an opportunity to participate in the excavations), the development of a landscape plan, as well as additional interpretive initiatives. The elders had the opportunity to discuss the project and contribute their thoughts and preferences regarding project aspects such as the proposed context-sensitive design. In addition to the presentation by GDOT, the elders—many of whom had never before visited New Echota—were given a tour of the historic site by Park Supervisor David Gomez. The meeting offered members of the EBCI, beyond the THPO office, an opportunity to participate in the ongoing consultation efforts between GDOT and the EBCI for the proposed improvements to SR 225. Consultation for the SR 225 project has also taken place between GDOT and the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

In October the Department hosted a two-day workshop entitled “Geophysical Applications in Archaeology.” The workshop was presented by Dr. Tim Horsley who has a Ph.D. in Archaeological Prospection from the Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, United Kingdom, and is currently a Research Scientist with the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and a Visiting Scholar with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. The workshop’s goal was to present how geophysical methods can be applied to archaeological investigations. Attendees learned the scientific principles of geophysical methods, collected data in the field (using ground-penetrating radar, gradiometer, and resistance meter), and learned the basics of post-processing. GDOT hopes to host a yearly geophysical workshop and expand the class by adding additional days and/or instructors.

In advance of a bridge replacement project on US 17 over the Back River in Chatham County, Tidewater Atlantic Research, Inc. (TAR), conducted underwater archaeological mitigation on a late nineteenth-century barque. Based on collected wood samples, the vessel was most likely constructed in Maine or the Southern Canadian Maritime Provinces. Although the vessel could not be specifically identified, TAR concluded that the vessel was involved in the lumber trade and was also fitted to carry other cargo. At some point in the vessel was condemned and towed into the Back River to be salvaged. In addition to the archaeological data recovery, this project also involved a public outreach component. TAR developed a series of 15 interpretive panels. Each panel tells a different story related to the maritime history of Savannah. The signs will be numbered, creating a trail for visitors along the River Walk.

The Department recently conducted archaeological mitigation on site 9FL174 in advance of the bridge replacement on SR 100 over the Coosa River in Floyd County. Excavations by Southern Research Historic Preservation Consultants, Inc., revealed a multi-component site, with short-term occupations from the late Paleoindian through Middle Woodland. In addition to the archaeological mitigation, Southern Research Historic Preservation Consultants, Inc., also completed a public outreach initiative as part of their contract. An archaeological display was donated to the City of Rome’s public library. The display is aimed at elementary and middle school aged students and consists of three wall mounted panels, a display case filled with artifact reproductions, and teacher handouts.

On November 17, 2008, GDOT’s Terri Lotti and Lynn Pietak of Edwards-Pitman took cadaver dogs out to site 9CK1. The cadaver dogs are to be used to try and relocate the mound through human remains identified during Robert Wauchope’s excavations in 1939. The results of the cadaver dogs survey, the geophysical studies, the aerial photography, and the high definition scanning used at this site will be presented in a paper presented by Ms. Lotti at the Society for American Archaeology meeting this April.

Dave Davis is currently assisting Pat Garrow on further analysis of the artifacts recovered from the museum grounds in 1969-1971. We look forward to new insights from this important Cherokee center in northwest Georgia.

The Chieftains looks forward to welcoming Dr. David Hally for a book signing and lecture regarding his new University of Alabama Press release of King: The Social Archaeology of a Late Mississippian Town in Northwestern Georgia. Dr. Hally will join us at the museum on Saturday October 4th from 1PM to 4PM.

Lastly the Chieftains Museum is proud to host the fall SGA meeting and we welcome those who might be interested in delivering a paper on current research.

The OAS continues has continued its work throughout Middle Georgia this fall, and has quite a few interesting activities to report.

Mark Barnes, recently retired National Park Service Archaeologist, gave the OAS a great talk on the old and new theories about Clovis and pre-Clovis sites on November 5, particularly relating to the Borax Lake site in California, the Hester site in Mississippi, and the Hardaway site in North Carolina, and expressed an interest in returning to give a talk on the Spanish mission period in the Southeast, another area of his expertise. Mr. Barnes is also willing to give talks to other SGA chapters. Other recent speakers have included Marty Willett, Chairman of the Fort Hawkins Commission, who spoke on the commission’s plans for the fort’s future, and Dan Elliott, President of the LAMAR Institute, who spoke on his recent findings and theories regarding Fort Hawkins archaeology.

Two OAS members, David Mincey and Stephen Hammack, attended Dr. Al Goodyear’s wonderful Clovis and pre-Clovis talk about the Topper site, which he gave to our sister organization, the Augusta Archaeological Society (AAS) in October.

Stephen Hammack attended the SHPO conference “Eternal Places: Discovering Georgia’s Historic Cemeteries,” and learned a great deal about Cemetery Preservation Plans, cemeteries and Georgia law, and several other topics that will be beneficial to the OAS as it continues to record cemetery sites and to work with historical organizations to document and delineate historic cemeteries. In fact, the Warner Robins Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp has asked that the OAS assist in delineating and mapping the Lt. James T. Woodward gravesite/cemetery, which is under threat from development all around it. This project will be done this winter.

In October, OAS members recorded several sites where Jones County landowner Jennifer O’Kelly has been finding artifact concentrations. These sites include a Clovis point site, a Dalton site that also has other Archaic material, a moonshine still site, a historic house site, a historic cemetery site, a large multi-component site dominated by Late Archaic material, and site where only lithic debris has so far been found.

Landowner Tony Pierce, from the same county, reported that he thought his artifact collection contained some Ocmulgee Fields pottery, indicative of the Creek towns along the Ocmulgee from 1685-1716. As the relocation of these towns is a new OAS initiative, Dr. Bob Cramer and Stephen Hammack visited to peruse the collection. It did indeed include Creek pottery, and a return visit will be necessary to record the site it came from. The collection also includes a great amount of the same pottery from the Mile Track site in Bibb County, as well as a Dalton point, Early, Middle and Late Archaic points, some Woodland points, and a few sherds of Lamar pottery from various sites around Middle Georgia. Also of note was a pipe stem fragment from Sonova Beach, across the Ocmulgee River from the new Waterworks Park, that has a 7/64th bore indicating a date range of 1650-1710.

Lloyd Schroder assisting the public at Seven Islands Artifact ID Day.

The OAS has sponsored 3 Artifact Identification (ID) days this fall, including:

• Seven Islands Artifact ID Day held in Indian Springs at the William McIntosh house on October 27, 2007. This event was a tremendous success and was held in conjunction with the Butts County Historical Society (BCHS), which marketed the event in Atlanta and Middle Georgia. A whopping 175 people brought items to be identified—so many that numbers had to be given out and people had to wait until their names were called! Lloyd Shroder (see photo at right), John Whatley, David Mincey, and Stephen Hammack were on hand to assist the public. Artifacts identified were from both the prehistoric and historic eras and included an unfinished Clovis point, a Suwannee/Simpson projectile point/ knife (see photo below), and two Daltons (all of which were recorded for the Georgia Paleoindian Recordation Project); many Early Archaic crystal quartz points; a fair number of quartz Morrow Mountain points; great numbers of Late Archaic points; some Woodland and Mississippian material; and historic ceramics, spikes, and nails. One gentleman with a large collection of Early Archaic points from a single site on his property attended UGA and took an archaeology course in the 1950s with Dr. A.R. Kelly! It was fascinating to talk to him about his experiences digging on different sites with Kelly and Joseph Caldwell. Another local landowner invited the OAS to visit his family farm and visit what may be the first site that was recorded in Butts County— a project that is now planned for January when deer season is over. Special thanks goes to W.J. Shannon of the BCHS, who organized the event and made it so successful!

• Warner Robins Artifact ID Day held on November 8, 2007, as part of Native American Heritage Observance (NAHO) month. OAS members David Mincey and Stephen Hammack assisted the public. Folks brought in collections from Middle Georgia and from as far away as the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Artifacts included two Clovis points, one Dalton point, Early, Middle, and Late Archaic material, and a small amount of Woodland and Mississippian material. The gentleman from New York shared some pieces from his collection, which was begun by his grandfather and father and includes material from the Lamoka Lake site and many others. He also shared his father’s notebooks, which preserve in great detail the locations of sites and what was found there. Some of the material is on loan to a local New York historical society museum. It is hoped that the three Paleo points, all from Georgia sites, can be recorded at a future date, as the owners said they would contact the OAS for this to be done. Other NAHO events included a luncheon, American Indian dancing and musical performances, primitive skills demonstrations by the talented Scott Jones, free roasted corn, and three talks by the base archaeologist—two at Macon’s Museum of Arts and Sciences and one before the Old Clinton Historical Society. Special thanks go to the Robins NAHO committee for making these events possible.

• Jones County Artifact ID Day, held in conjunction with the Old Clinton Historical Society (OCHS) on November 17, 2007. AAS member John Whatley and OAS members David Mincey, John Trussell, and Stephen Hammack assisted the public, and recorded one Dalton projectile point/knife and made plans to record about 15 more, all from Jones County. Other artifacts included Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian material, and several historic artifacts including a Union officer’s sword, and a token with Arabic writing on one side and possibly Chinese writing on the other that has a square hole through the center and probably dates to the early 20th century. But the most fascinating artifact, if it turns out to be authentic, was a small item carved from a rock with the consistency of soapstone. This artifact came from a field near the Savannah River in Effingham County, and depicts what appears to be a dead Indian with clothes and a haircut from the Spanish Mission era whose sarcophagus is decorated with many native plants and animals (see photos below). It could date as early as the sixteenth century and as late as the late seventeenth century, if it is not modern. Special thanks go to SGA and OCHS member Carol Krom for making this event possible and for showing OAS members and their families around her family farm and feeding us afterwards!

The OAS continues to meet the first Monday of each month at 6:30 PM in Room 143 of Mercer University’s Science and Engineering Building. Please come and visit!

The photos below are various views of an unusual artifact brought to the Jones County Artifact ID Day.

 

The Muskogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and the member tribes of the Southeastern Muskogee (Creek) Confederacy are continuing their ongoing research projects in 2007, which will provide archaeologists and historians a more complete understanding of the Southeast’s Indigenous Peoples. For decades, the Creeks have been frustrated because many official documents, historical markers and publications contained inaccurate information about their cultural heritage or mistranslated Muskogean words. Several years ago, Creek leaders came to the conclusion that a primary factor in the continued regurgitation of inaccurate or incomplete information from publication to publication was the indifference held by many Creeks toward historical and archaeological research. That problem is being rectified by a wave of new books being published by Creek scholars and professionals.

For the third year in a row, the Creek Nation co-sponsored non-intrusive archaeological studies at Etalwa (Etowah Mounds National Landmark). The research project is being headed by University of South Carolina archaeologist, Dr. Adam King, and being monitored by Joyce Bear, Director of Cultural Resource Preservation for the Muskogee (Creek) Nation.

Also, for the past three years, the Judicial Branch of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation has funded a team of Creek Law and History professors from Tulsa University, Muskogee University, and Baconne College in their comprehensive review of original archives, documents, and publications in Georgia and Tennessee relating to the Creek Indians. The final report has not been published, but some very interesting facts are coming out of the study—the most surprising being that there were Creek and Yuchi Indians living as ethnic communities in Georgia and Tennessee long after the Removal Period of the 1830s.

There were a series of pogroms in Georgia from 1832 through 1855 in which either Federal troops, Georgia Guards or local militias evicted “Friendly Creeks,” who were citizens of the state, and then marched them to the nearest state line. Creeks were living in tribal units in the Okefenokee Swamp at least as late as the 1860s. Contemporary newspaper accounts in Waycross described militia action against the “Ware County” Indians in which the Creeks were driven off of farmsteads and back into the swamp. Apparently, the Ware County Creeks never left the state, but in the late 1800s dispersed and began working for the turpentine industry or in railroad construction. Today, there are no identifiable Creek Indian communities in that region.

During the 1940s and 1950s, timber companies supplying the new paper mills on the coast, evicted hundreds of Creek families from along the edges of Southeast Georgia rivers and swamps. These families usually did not have clear title to their property, because for over a century they had lived anonymously on land that nobody wanted, or else were share-croppers. Most had never been listed by the census or attended public schools.

The State of Tennessee has documented the presence of Yuchi and Upper Creek Indians in the rugged Cohutta Mountains of Polk County, TN and Fannin County, GA as late as 1911. At the time, they were supplying fire wood and maintaining roads for the copper industry around Copperhill, TN. It is has been theorized that the Yuchi either moved to the Qualla Cherokee Reservation, intermarried with Caucasian families, or else dispersed to larger communities where there were more opportunities.

For the second June in a row, a team of Oklahoma Creek professors and students worked alongside archaeologists and volunteers of the Fernbank Museum of Natural History at sites along the Ocmulgee River near its juncture with the Oconee River. The project is seeking the location of a Spanish colonial mission and also studying the dense Native American settlement of the Ocmulgee Basin. Hands-on experience and structured independent research are basic tenets of Muskogee University’s new curriculum. Creek student teams are also working with the History and Anthropology departments of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

In early 2007, the Muskogee (Creek) National Council and Second Chief Alfred Berryhill sponsored the construction of a large photorealistic model of Etalwa (Etowah Mounds) that used the latest information available from Adam King’s project (see below). Both the Etalwa Model and the earlier Ochesee Model (Lamar Village) are now on permanent display in the rotunda of the Creek Capitol in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. The models were built in Georgia and transported to Oklahoma. The models are used to explain the Creek’s heritage to school and college groups, and of course, an increasing number of tourists.

The Perdido Bay Muskogee (Creek) Tribe of Pensacola, Florida and Warm Springs, Georgia is sponsoring a broad array of programs to expand the public’s knowledge of Creek culture and history. With the help of the Florida Endowment for the Humanities and many donations, Perdido Bay recently started operation of a 43-foot-long mobile anthropological museum that will tour the Southeast. The tribe has also contracted with a Pensacola architectural firm to a design a regional museum and cultural center on land it owns in Escambia County, Florida. Construction funds for the project are now being assembled.

Buck Woodard, from southwest Georgia, and a member of the Perdido Bay Creek Tribe, was hired by the directors of the ‚“The New World” to insure the authenticity of all Native American aspects of that beautiful movie. He subsequently has become involved with other similar projects, and was named Director of Virginia’s American Indian Resource Center at William & Mary College.

Richard Thornton, originally from Waycross, Georgia, and also a member of the Perdido Bay Creek Tribe, is an architectural history consultant for the Muskogee (Creek) Nation. He recently completed a three year study of the Native American town sites in the Southern Highlands. The goal of the project was to identify the ethnic composition of this region at the time of first European Contact. The Creeks have long felt that many commonly accepted ‚“facts” concerning Native Americans in that region were contrived by early European settlers and then, not thoroughly researched by mid-twentieth century scholars. Linguistic analysis was the most interesting aspect of the study. This phase involved the translation of as many settlements mentioned by the de Soto and de Pardo expedition chronicles as possible. Thornton also translated the modern ‚“Indian” place names in the region. At least seventeen ethnic groups were identified. About eighty percent of the place names were Muskogean in origin, including both rivers on the Cherokee Reservation! The only major rivers with Cherokee root names were in northwest Georgia and northeastern Tennessee. The name of the Swannanoa River (near Asheville, NC) seems to be derived from the Muskogean words ‚“Suwannee Owa” or ‚“Shawnee Waters.” All the town names mentioned by the Spanish chroniclers for sites in Georgia, Tennessee, and western North Carolina were Muskogean—either Koasati, Highland Hitchiti, Coastal Hitchiti, Taskekee, Alabamo or Highland Muskogee. The Carolina Piedmont contained a mixture of Muskogean, Siouan, apparent Yuchi, and Algonquian names. However, all political titles in the region except for one small province in the Carolina Piedmont, were Muskogean. The biggest surprise was that a major town in the Smoky Mountains, Cholahuma, was an Alabamo word meaning ‚“Red Fox!”

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.

Prominently displayed on the office wall of the Muskogee (Creek) Tribe’s Chief Justice, Patrick Moore, is a tattered old flag. At first glance, one might assume it was a Civil War ancestor’s regimental banner. The Okmulgee, Oklahoma attorney, though, will be quick to tell you that it is a 200-year-old battle ensign of the Creek Navy. Yes, the Creek Confederacy once had a small gunboat navy, which patrolled the Gulf Coast and rivers of their lands. This little-known fact is one of many that distinguish the Muskogean people’s heritage. Unfortunately, among modern-day Creeks, few know anything about their heritage prior to being forced to leave their Homeland in the Southeast.

Led by such dedicated people as Judge Moore and Cultural Resources Director, Joyce Bear, the Muskogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma has embarked on a multi-tiered educational program to raise public awareness of the richness of their ancient culture and to instill pride among tribal members in their accomplishments. A university has been founded, which will train Native American professionals. Creek students are being taught about the accomplishments of the Muskogean peoples prior to the disastrous impact of European invasion, and again prior to the forced deportation of many Creeks to Oklahoma. Tribal leaders are also reaching out to people of Creek descent back in the Creek Homeland of Georgia, Alabama, eastern Tennessee, northern Florida, and South Carolina. Many Creeks, especially those of the Hitchiti-speaking branch, did not go west, and instead assimilated into the American frontier culture or hid out in the swamps of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. In the near future, tribal leaders plan to build one or more living history towns where visitors can experience life as it was in the Southeast prior to European contact. They also anticipate a major expansion of the tribe’s anthropological museum in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma Creeks take great pride in their culture’s survival. Several times, apocalyptic losses of population have almost exterminated them. In the 1500s and early 1600s, the Muskogeans lost perhaps 90-98 percent of their population to European diseases, Spanish weapons, and English/Spanish slave raids. Between 1812-1838, somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 Creeks died as a result of warfare, terrorist attacks by bands of frontier thugs, or the Trail of Tears. The Creeks were intentionally placed on lands in Oklahoma that were claimed by six “wild” tribes such as the Sioux and Comanche. It was thought that in a short time the wild Indians would exterminate the Creeks. Instead the Creek Mounted Rifles quickly defeated all enemies (Indian and White) and the Creeks became the dominant political force on the Western Plains just prior to the Civil War. During the American Civil War, over one-third of the Creek Nation died. Ironically, it was the minority that sided with the North that especially suffered. They were put into concentration camps in Kansas, where many starved to death. The South considered the Creeks to be full (and militarily valuable) citizens, so did their best to maintain the pro-South faction’s welfare.

After the Civil War, the Bureau of Indian Affairs adopted divisive policies, which would encourage the tribe to disband as soon as possible. It is interesting that the most authoritative book on Creek history, The Road to Disappearance, was originally written by Angie Debo in 1941, when it was assumed that the Creeks would become invisible within a decade. However, today Creek culture is thriving, and the Oklahoma branch alone is one of the largest tribes in the United States.

Virtual Reality Educational Tools

Over the past two years, my architecture practice has been providing the Muskogee (Creek) Nation with full-color virtual reality computer models of ancestral towns and ceremonial villages in the Creek Homeland. These are used in exhibits and on educational websites. Professors use my first book, Ocmulgee Under Five Suns, as the primary teaching aid for explaining Muskogean Culture prior to European Contact. More recently, I prepared virtual reality models of 63 Native American town sites throughout the Southeast, Ohio Valley, and Mississippi Valley for use in the Creek’s educational programs. Members of other tribes are beginning to attend classes at Muskogee University, so the professors thought it was appropriate to expand the cultural base of their curriculum.

Ocese’ Model

Since the autumn of 2005, I have been working on a very interesting project for the Oklahoma Creeks. They requested that I build a large photo-realistic model of the Mother Town, Talwa Ocese’ (pronounced Ochessee in English.) Anthropologists know this site as “the Lamar Village at Ocmulgee National Monument.” It will be on display in the lobby of the Creek’s office building and also be used to educate groups of students from the local schools. I had initially assumed that this would be a simple project ‚“to get my feet wet” prior to going on to building models of more famous sites like Italwa (Etowah Mounds). Readily available resources said that the Lamar Village was a small community that appeared about 200 years after the large mounds at Ocmulgee were abandoned, and itself was abandoned a short time after European Contact.

However, after obtaining a little-seen 1973 archaeological report from the National Park Service*, my understanding of the Lamar site changed drastically. As usual, the actual archaeological information on the site contrasted greatly with museum exhibits and general assumptions made by the archaeological community. Ocese’ was a large 22.6-acre town on an island! The island was still visible as late as 1800. Two hundred years of severe flooding and deep sedimentation has significantly changed the appearance of the site. “Lamar’s Island” was not just a Late Mississippian-Lamar Culture settlement, but a location for periodic human habitation for thousands of years.

According to the NPS report, during the Archaic and Sedentary periods, the site of Ocese’ had originally been a horseshoe bend in the river. Archaic and Sedentary period peoples camped or built villages there from time to time. The truncated platform mound at Ocese’ was begun around AD 1200, only about 50 years after construction ceased on the Great Temple Mound at Ocmulgee. The Spiral Mound appeared to be a sacred location that was in use during the Early Mississippian period and was aligned with several structures at Early Mississippian Ocmulgee and Brown’s Mount. Even more surprising was the fact that the ceramic styles and chronology at Ocese’ matched those at Italwa. The probable dates of the Itawa style pottery suggest that there were Italwa culture people living on the island while the Early Mississippian Ocmulgee was occupied— but they were a different people than those at Ocmulgee proper. Ocese’ continued to prosper after Italwa was temporarily abandoned. At some undocumented point in time, an estuary of the Ocmulgee River cut across the south end of the circular palisaded town and a new wall was built. Historical period artifacts found on the Lamar Village Site suggested that there had been some occupation of the site up until the late 1700s.

Life Among the Common Folk at Italwa (A.D. 1205), Etowah River Valley, Georgia

Creek cultural leaders were delighted with the chronological information contained in the National Park Service report because it seemed to reinforce their ancient tradition, that Ocese’ was the point where the Muskogee people stopped migrating eastward and began settling down. It should remembered, however, that although the “true” Muskogee are the dominant ethnic influence in the Oklahoma Creeks, there were many other branches of the Muskogeans in the Creek Homeland such as the Hitchiti, Okone’ (Oconee), Kvsa (Coosa), Chiaha, Tamathli, Yamase’, Taskeke’ (Tuskegee) , Koasati, Alabama, and Tvkabace’ (Tuckabachee.) The traditions of today could actually be a blend of many traditions in the Homeland. Nevertheless, the virtual reality images and now the physical model have stimulated the interest of Creek leaders in protecting their heritage in the Homeland. Many positive actions may spin off from this educational effort.

* The report was a summary compiled from comments made by archaeologists at a seminar in April 1973 sponsored by the National Park Service. The authors were Donald Crusoe, Stephen A. Deutschle, Robert S. Neitzal, John T. Penman, and Hale G. Smith. No other bibliographical information is available.

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.