SGA President Catherine Long has sent a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and others regarding our grave concern over the planned closing of the Georgia Archives on 1 November 2012.

Finish your research at the Georgia Archives before November 1st, 2012.That’s because the Archives will close to the public on that day, and staffing may be too reduced for you to get a special appointment to access the Archives. Note that as of the date of this post, this information is not noted on the Archives’ website.

Are you interested in the earliest human settlers in North America? If so, you may enjoy browsing the information offered online in The Paleoindian Database of the Americas. The Georgia section now includes thousands of photographs and drawings of Paleoindian and Early Archaic projectile points, and metric data for the points, too, courtesy of R. Jerald Ledbetter. Style studies, for example of stone tools, do not always match the results of archaeogenetic studies.

What did the countryside look like in northern Georgia during the Civil War? We get some idea from a contemporary description from General O.O. Howard, who lead troops traveling from Chattanooga toward Atlanta in the spring of 1864. How can you assess the accuracy of such reports? This is a basic skill required of researchers….

Do you geotag your digital photographs? North Carolina archivists have determined the geographic location of myriad photographs and other historical materials that illuminate the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway, then put scans of those materials online for researchers to browse. Read more about Driving Through Time: The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina in the full story.

Read “Examining Variation in the Human Settlement of Prehistoric Georgia,” by John A. Turck, Mark Williams, and John F. Chamblee in the Spring 2011 issue of Early Georgia (included in membership in the SGA) and you will better understand changes and continuities in the prehistoric occupation across the landscape of the area we now call Georgia. The trio apply statistical methods to the treasure trove of data stored at the Georgia Archaeological Site File in Athens to fine-tune our understanding of where people lived when in the past, and of how those patterns changed over time.

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.

Heritage management involves several basic steps. Resources must be located and described. Once found, some kind of filing and data retrieval system is needed to manage them properly. Here in our state we have the Georgia Archaeological Site File. For places with fewer options than we have in the US of A, the Getty Conservation Institute has spearheaded development of an electronic inventory system that includes locational data; the pilot project is based in Jordan, but probably will be expanded to other areas.

Looking for digital access to early twentieth century soil maps of Georgia? The University of Alabama’s Historical Map Archive includes them, but only if you use the free Mr SID plugin, which is only available for Windows XP or Vista.

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!

The US National Archives and Records Administration keeps papers, photographs, moving images, and more, only a very few of which are available online. Examine a photo from the digital collection, and consider the information about the photograph. You can search the online records yourself by following a link in the full story.

Take a moment to browse some of the two thousand photographs the National Park Service has posted online from its Historic Photograph Collection. The posted photos include six of Ocmulgee National Monument, including one of the earthlodge while it was being excavated. That photograph dates to the 1930s.

Members of the SGA are often interested in historic maps. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has debuted an online resource called North Carolina Maps with digitized versions of more than 3000 historical maps, including Sanborn Fire Insurance maps.

Eighteen years of research by history professor Loren Schweninger at the University of North Carolina—Greensboro has produced an online database is called the Digital Library on American Slavery. Data are drawn from court cases from across fifteen states, with over 1100 records from the state of Georgia.

NAGPRA stands for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. NAGPRA is a federal law. In March 2010, NAGPRA has been in the news three times….

The University of Georgia Libraries have a special section called the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which offers research materials in digital form online. This map, dated 1796, offers insights into the encroachment of Euroamericans into the interior of what is now Georgia, which was then held by Native American groups.

Do some research online and save fuel! Georgia’s Secretary of State’s website includes the Virtual Vault, which contains historical documents, records, maps, etc., dating back to 1733, as well as recent photographs.

The Digital Library of Georgia website includes a page of links titled “Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842″ that you may find useful. Links include the official websites of Southeastern tribes, and some museums, archives, and libraries, etc.

Your tax dollars support many governmental programs. One is archives of historic information. The Southeast Region Archives building is just south of Atlanta, in Jonesboro. Among the many resources there, I recently examined some pictures of farms that were bought by the US government and flooded to make TVA reservoirs that still make hydropower we use today.

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.

If you find yourself curious about a particular species, be it plant, animal, or even fungi, bacteria, archaea, protozoa, or virus, visit the Encyclopedia of Life website. This ambitious website plans to list all estimated 1.8 million species on Earth by 2017. You can even contribute information, including pictures, and class projects using the website are encouraged.

Glass bottles are quite common on historic sites, and we can often find interesting specimens at flea markets or in antique stores. This website, sponsored by the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Bureau of Land Management, provides detailed information about bottles made in the USA (and some from Canada) between about 1800 through the 1950s.

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.

To explore and learn about the decorations used on prehistoric pottery from Georgia, visit the University of Georgia’s website on Georgia Indian ceramics. The helpful website has pictures, discussions, and full bibliographic citations for pertinent literature.

The National Park Service website offers a list of laws and regulations pertaining to our nation’s cultural heritage on its website, along with links to the complete texts of the legislation. Perhaps most historically important is the Antiquities Act of 1906, which has been amended once and protects historic and prehistoric antiquities on Federal lands. Another important one is Executive Order 11593, signed in 1971, which charged the Department of the Interior with leading historic preservation activities for the nation.

This is just a partial list…. Bartowdig is a website about a single Native American archaeological site in northwest Georgia. Part of the site is beneath a state highway. Widening of that highway precipitated recent research to mitigate the impact on the part of the ancient community that would be destroyed by road construction. The [...]

Read William Bartram’s Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws; Containing An Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians, published in 1791, right here on the internet. You will miss the experience of turning aging pages, but you can read every word, and see some pictures, too!

The World Digital Library is now online. UNESCO has spearheaded this collective effort to make precious documents of all kinds from cultures around the world available in digital form to all who have internet access. The site launched with content from libraries and other cultural institutions across the globe—contributions from 26 institutions in 19 countries. The picture is from the frontispiece of a Dutch-published book about the New World and Australia dated 1671.

You may be interested in subscribing to the Historic Preservation Division’s Preservation Georgia Online newsletter, to keep up with news and events around the state relevant to archaeology and historic preservation, including grant programs and National Register news. If you’re not already a subscriber, you might want to give it a try—it’s free!

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, [...]