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is your portal to some of Georgia’s most important historical documents, from 1733 to the present.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 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.

The Digital Library of Georgia has many useful resources for anyone interested in Georgia’s past. It has been described as a gateway to Georgia’s history and culture through digitized books, manuscripts, photographs, government documents, newspapers, maps, audio, video, and other resources.

The Digital Library of Georgia is based at the University of Georgia Libraries, and is an initiative of GALILEO, the state’s virtual library.

Click here to go to the Digital Library of Georgia main webpage.

Click here to go to the “Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842″ webpage.

Click here to go to the main GALILEO webpage.

The Southeast Region Archives, supported by your tax dollars, house diverse historical records collected by the government. They note on their website:

Records in the National Archives tell the story of southern families and communities, technological advances that changed lives, and social and economic forces that shaped the makeup of our society.

Most people go to the Archives to look up records and do research. I went there recently and looked at photographs and records of houses and farms purchased and destroyed to create an impounded lake in Tennessee. This project was done by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which was chartered by Congress in 1933. The lakes were created primarily to reduce flooding and to enable power generation at the dams. They also became important recreational destinations, and improved opportunities for economic development.

Below is a photograph of a farm that was destroyed so the land could be flooded, I think to make Douglas Reservoir, near Dandridge, Tennessee.

The Douglas Dam was completed in 1943, and lies on the French Broad River, which is part of the Tennessee River drainage, which has nine TVA dams with hydroelectric plants. Hydropower constitutes only about 10% of the power TVA generates; other power sources are from fossil-fuel plants (60%) and nuclear plants (30%). Green power contributions are negligible. Hydroelectric facilities are integrated into the dams that impound the water, and use the power of the water flowing because of gravity from higher in the reservoir to the lower elevation below the dam to generate electricity. The water flows through a turbine as it falls, making the turbine move. This movement is converted into electricity. The TVA provides a drawing of this here.

The TVA cautions fisherfolk to eat smaller, younger fish and avoid the fatty flesh and skin to reduce exposure to toxins like PCBs, chlordane, DDT, dioxins, and mercury, which are mostly in the mud at the bottom of the reservoirs, rather than in the water.

Many families were uprooted when these dams and reservoirs were built. The government can legally take people’s land through laws pertaining to eminent domain, even if the owners do not consent. The government can do this if the land is converted to public use.

Eminent domain laws are a legal means for our country to balance the needs of all (public needs) against the rights of the few. In the USA, eminent domain was adopted from British laws extant at the time the Constitution was drafted in the late 1700s. However, our government cannot take lands (property) without just compensation, and only if it benefits the public good.

A family who loses their farm and lands so that a dam and reservoir can beconstructed suffers a great loss; however, a whole region that endures less flooding and has more and more inexpensive electricity enjoys considerable benefits. Nevertheless, balancing the good of all against the rights of few is tricky and difficult. Should the family receive the same money for their farm as they would if they sold it to another farmer or a neighbor? Should they receive more or less?

Download an archaeological report and list of artifacts recovered during recent research to locate, identify, and determine the level of preservation of as many locales as possible in the City of Savannah that are related to the October 9, 1779 Battle of Savannah. In short, for this research, archaeologists and SGA members Rita and Dan Elliott assembled all map information about the battle, then combined it with a recent digital map of the city to discover where prospecting for intact remains might be productive. They focused ground-truthing in modern green spaces, which again reminds us of another value of green spaces beyond their “greenness.” They examined specific locations in Madison Square, Lafayette Square, Emmet Park, Colonial Park Cemetery, Cuyler Park, Dixon Park, and Myers Park.

The report, authored by the Elliotts, is titled “Savannah under Fire, 1779: Identifying Savannah’s Revolutionary War Battlefield” and is dated June 2009. In part, the report abstract notes:

The project was extremely successful. Archeologists located a defensive ditch (almost two meters deep) dug by the British in 1779, defended during the battle, and in-filled by the Americans in 1782. The ditch lies in what is now Madison Square. Brick fragments/rubble in the ditch was part of the brick from the barracks razed by the British less than two weeks before the battle. The brick was used in the defenses around the Central redoubts and was pushed into the British trenches following the British evacuation of the city in 1782. In nearby Lafayette Square, archeologists discovered artifacts that were likely discarded by British soldiers occupying the defensive lines near and in the Central Redoubts, and by civilians associated with the soldiers. Emmet Park revealed a deep (3.5 ft.) feature that may have been constructed as part of the river battery associated with nearby Fort Prevost. Not only did archeologists discover evidence of numerous unmarked graves in Colonial Park Cemetery, but also an anomaly that appears to be one of the ditches running toward a redoubt. Archeologists found no evidence of Revolutionary War activity in Cuyler, Dixon, and Myers parks.

Perhaps surprisingly, the archaeological resources identified by this research were found to be in excellent condition.

This research was conducted by archaeologists with the Coastal Heritage Society, and primarily funded through the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program, with some matching funds from The LAMAR Institute. The Coastal Heritage Society, founded in 1975 and based in Savannah, has three historic archaeological sites: Old Fort Jackson National Historic Landmark, the Savannah History Museum, and the Roundhouse Railroad Museum.

Go to this page to download the report “Savannah under Fire, 1779″ and the project’s artifact catalogue. The report is a large PDF file, over 88 MB.

En route to understanding the ecological context of our human past, archaeologists tend to be interested in non-human life and plant and animal communities.

The Encyclopedia of Life is a website that seeks:

to organize and make available via the Internet virtually all information about life present on Earth. At its heart lies a series of Web sites—one for each of the approximately 1.8 million known species—that provide the entry points to this vast array of knowledge.

Further:

The EOL dynamically synthesizes biodiversity knowledge about all known species, including their taxonomy, geographic distribution, collections, genetics, evolutionary history, morphology, behavior, ecological relationships, and importance for human well being, and distribute this information through the Internet. It serves as a primary resource for a wide audience that includes scientists, natural resource managers, conservationists, teachers, and students around the world. We believe that the EOL’s encompassing scope and innovation will have a major global impact in facilitating biodiversity research, conservation, and education. [quotes from the EOL website]

The EOL is free and easy to use. You can search by common name or scientific name. The full taxonomic classification is listed for each species.

The EOL’s first 30,000 pages came online in late February 2008. That’s a drop in the bucket, since scientists estimate that there are now about 1.8 million species on Earth, including fungi, bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and viruses. The website is estimated to reach that goal in 2017.

The EOL invites both scientists and the general public to submit information and photos for inclusion. The EOL encourages class projects and other student participation. Numerous foundations and individual donors allowed EOL to be established and support its continued development.

The EOL is useful for archaeologists because of the detailed information it provides. The image above is a screen-grab of the EOL page for Slash Pine (Pinus elliottii Engelm.), which is a hard yellow pine indigenous to Georgia’s Coastal Plain. Details like this are useful to an archaeologist trying to understand an ecosystem:

The Slash Pine grows well on a variety of acidic soils in full sun or partial shade. It does poorly in basic soil (high pH) and is not recommended for irrigation water has a high pH. Once established, it is more tolerant of wet sites than most other pines and is moderately salt-tolerant. It is not highly drought-tolerant, but more so than most other pines.

Visit the EOL’s website here.

Bottle photograph from Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website.

If you’re interested in historic bottles, you may enjoy browsing the Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. The website aids visitors in finding out how old a bottle is, and what type it is. The website is limited to bottles made in the USA, and to some extent, Canada, between about 1800 and the 1950s. That’s still a lot of bottles, and some major changes in bottle making technology!

Why, you might wonder, is this information presented via a website, and not a more traditional printed publication? The website states:

In order to answer or address questions related to the dating and typing a bottle, a lot of information must be presented in a way that is accessible to the user of this site. A major benefit of using the internet to accomplish this task is the ability to use hundreds (or thousands) of illustrative pictures that would not be possible (or affordable) if published in book form. Another benefit of the internet is the relative ease of revising and/or adding information to a website as corrected or new information becomes available. As soon as the information is added it is available to everyone immediately; an attribute not possible with a printed publication. Finally, the ability of the internet to easily reach more potential users than any other communication medium makes it the most powerful tool of education and enlightenment available today.

You might especially enjoy perusing scanned pages of the 1906 Illinois Glass Company Illustrated Catalogue and Price List. Thumbnails of the scans are on this webpage.

The website is sponsored by the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Bureau of Land Management of the US Department of the Interior. Click here to visit it.

You may not know about free software that lets you “fly” across the Earth’s surface, viewing satellite pictures of the surface below. The software for doing this is provided free by Google, and is called Google Earth.

As they say on their website:

Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others.

Remember, you need a fairly fast broadband connection and video processor on your computer to do this.

One fun thing to do with Google Earth is to overlay old maps on the modern landscape. The example here is a historic map that I found in the Library of Congress online map collection. This map was created in 1864 by Robert Knox Sneden (who lived 1832–1918), and shows the Atlanta area as of 1 September 1864, complete with batteries, earthworks, and the locations of both Union and Confederate forces, as well as city streets. Remember that the city of Atlanta fell to Sherman’s army only a week later, on 8 September. The Virginia Historical Society holds the original map, which measures 45 x 34 centimeters.

In this article, I’m just examining a portion of the entire 1864 Sneden map, the part that spans downtown Atlanta. The top image shows the small cropped area of the old map on the right, with the same area from Google Earth (north is “up” in both cases). I’ve put arrows to the same features on both maps. They are a particular street and the location of the Civil-War-period train station. You can see the city plan is very similar, except for the interstate corridor east of downtown, and some alteration of the north-south rail line on the west side of downtown.

Below is a picture that shows how when you overlay the map image on Google Earth (or “drape” it), the software gives you bright green “handles” to stretch and manipulate the inserted image atop Google Earth’s satellite view.

Why don’t the maps match exactly? Do you know what the global positioning system is? How has map-making changed since 1864?

Here’s a link for the Sneden map.

Want to learn about the decorations on prehistoric pottery from Georgia? Try the University of Georgia’s website “Georgia Indian Pottery Site.” The current version was developed this year, and improves on the previous version, which was begun in 2005. Originally, it was essentially a digital version of the SGA’s Early Georgia from 1999, volume 27, issue 1, which is currently out of print.

You can look up pottery types by general decorative style (e.g., punctated, check stamped), or by specific name (e.g., Kasita red filmed, Deptford cord marked).

This handy and informative website is worth taking time to explore.

The National Park Service, which is administered by the Department of the Interior, has gathered together an online listing of Federal laws pertaining to archaeology. As they note:

The laws and regulations that govern the preservation of the nation’s cultural heritage developed over the course of the 20th century, beginning with the protection of cultural sites on federal lands. Today, many aspects of the nation’s cultural heritage are recognized, protected, and interpreted in national parks, other public lands, and in communities. Many of these laws are broadly applicable—the Antiquities Act and the National Historic Preservation Act—while others are specific to particular lands or resource types.

Perhaps most historically important of these laws is the Antiquities Act of 1906, which has been amended once. Section 1 states:

Any person who shall appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy any historic or prehistoric ruin or monument, or any object of antiquity, situated on lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States, without the permis- sion of the Secretary of the Department of the Government having jurisdiction over the lands on which said antiquities are situated, shall, upon conviction, be fined in a sum of not more than five hundred dollars or be imprisoned for a period of not more than ninety days, or shall suffer both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.

Another of my personal favorites is Executive Order 11593, signed by Richard M. Nixon in 1971. Section 1 begins:

The Federal Government shall provide leadership in preserving, restoring, and maintaining the historic and cultural environment of the Nation.

I found a few of the links to be broken, but this list is a good start for anyone interested in Federal laws, policies, and programs that relate to archaeology. Click here to go to the NPS page listing.

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 site contains the remains of a Native American occupation that lasted from approximately 300 B.C. until A.D 650. These remains include three earthen mounds and a large circular ditch, along with an extensive “midden” that represents a dark soil mixture of decomposed organic refuse and artifacts that surrounded numerous residences. The site was excavated in advance of the widening of State Highway 61/113, with over 50,000 square feet excavated. The Leake site archaeological investigation revealed that this community was a major sociopolitical center during the prehistoric Middle Woodland period, figuring prominently in the interaction among peoples from across Southeastern and Midwestern North America.

Archaeological excavations in 2003 and 2004 required in advance of improvements to a four-way intersection investigated the Spier House, which was once a grand Antebellum plantation house surrounded by acres of farmland near Fairburn. The house was built in 1851 by Allison Spier, a successful politician and planter, and destroyed several decades ago. Researchers found that the house had become an archaeological site of three granite chimneys, a stone and brick-lined basement, a well, and the ruins of three outbuildings. The Spier House ruins contain some unusual features for a nineteenth-century house in Georgia, including: 1) a basement, 2) a stacked hearth chimney in the basement and floor above, and 3) the chimney masonry style. Constructing a residence with a basement was extremely rare in rural Georgia. In addition, most early Georgia houses did not contain a chimney with stacked hearths. Chimneys built with cut granite were not unusual, but the immense size of the slabs and exquisite craftsmanship of the Spier House chimneys is quite distinctive. This website was produced on behalf of GDOT by New South Associates of Stone Mountain, which conducted an in-depth archaeological investigation and an architectural historical study.

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, on the internet. You will miss the experience of turning aging pages, but you can read every word, and see some pictures, too!

This picture of the Seminole Chief (mico) is the book’s frontispiece. The mico wears many feathers, including attached to his headband and to an instrument or wand he’s holding. These may be symbols of his office and visually convey his high status.

During his travels in the late 1700s, Bartram was most interested in recording natural history, especially plants. But he traveled with Native American guides and stayed in their communities, so this book contains lots of first-person observations that archaeologists have combed to help them reconstruct Late Mississippian and early historic period Native American customs, foods, etc. Bartram also lists the names of Native towns, and some Native words.

Bartram notes on pages 32–34 about traveling up the Savannah River valley from the coast to Augusta, and of events he experienced in that then-frontier town in 1776:

THUS have I endeavoured to give the reader a short and natural description of the vast plain lying between the region of Augusta and the sea coast; for from Augusta the mountainous country begins (when compared to the level sandy plain already passed) although it is at least an hundred and fifty miles west, thence to the Cherokee or Apalachean mountains; and this space may with propriety be called the hilly country, every where fertile and delightful, continually replenished by innumerable rivulets, either coursing about the fragrant hills, or springing from the rocky precipices, and forming many cascades; the coolness and purity of which waters invigorate the air of this otherwise hot and sultry climate.

THE village of Augusta is situated on a rich and fertile plain, on the Savanna river; the buildings are near its banks, and extend nearly two miles up to the cataracts, or falls, which are formed by the first chain of rocky hills, through which this famous river forces itself, as if impatient to repose on the extensive plain before it invades the ocean. When the river is low, which is during the summer months, the cataracts are four or five feet in height across the river, and the waters continue rapid and broken, rushing over rocks five miles higher up: this river is near five hundred yards broad at Augusta.

A FEW days after our arrival at Augusta, the chiefs and warriors of the Creeks and Cherokees being arrived, the Congress and the business of the treaty came on, and the negociations continued undetermined many days; the merchants of Georgia demanding at least two millions of acres of land from the Indians, as a discharge of their debts, due, and of long standing; the Creeks, on the other hand, being a powerful and proud spirited People, their young warriors were unwilling to submit to so large a demand, and their conduct evidently betrayed a disposition to dispute the ground by force of arms, and they could not at first be brought to listen to reason and amicable terms; however, at length, the cool and deliberate counsels of the ancient venerable chiefs, enforced by liberal presents of suitable goods, were too powerful inducements for them any longer to resist, and finally prevailed. The treaty concluded in unanimity, pace, and good order; and the honorable Superintendant, not forgetting his promise to me, at the conclusion, mentioned my business, and recommended me to the protection of the Indian chiefs and warriors. The presents being distributed amongst the Indians, they departed, returning home to their towns. A company of surveyors were appointed, by the Governor and Council, to ascertain the boundaries of the new purchase; they were to be attended by chiefs of the Indians, selected and delegated by their countrymen, to assist, and be witnesses that the articles of the treaty were fulfilled, as agreed to by both parties in Congress.

Bartram’s final observations, on pages 521–522, are on the architecture of the Native Americans:

BUT in all the region of the Muscogulge country, South-West from the Oakmulge River quite to the Tallapoose, down to the city of Mobile, and thence along the sea coast, to the Mississipi, I saw no signs of mountains or highways, except at Taensa, where were several inconsiderable conical mountains, and but one instance of the tetragon terraces which was at the Apalachucla old town, on the West banks of that river; here were yet remaining conspicuous monuments, as vast four square terraces, chunk yards, &c. almost equalling those eminent ones at the Oakmulge fields; but no high conical mounts. Those Indians have a tradition that these remains are the ruins of an ancient Indian town and fortress. I was not in the interior parts of the Chactaw territories, and therefore am ignorant whether there are any mounts or monuments there.

To conclude this subject concerning the monuments of the Americans, I deem it necessary to observe as my opinion, that none of them that I have seen discover the least signs of the arts, sciences, or architecture of the Europeans or other inhabitants of the old world: yet evidently betray every sign or mark of the most distant antiquity.

This document is offered by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as part of its digital resources called “Documenting the American South,” available here.

Browse the World Digital Library, sponsored by the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and see digital versions of precious, original historical documents, including letters, manuscripts, photos, books, and maps. In keeping with the multinational membership of the UN, navigation tools and content descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and others may be added. The original materials, however, are not translated, but only provided in their original form. At its launch in April 2009, the site had content from libraries and other cultural institutions in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America—contributions from 26 institutions in 19 countries.

According to the WDL website:

US Librarian of Congress James H. Billington proposed the establishment of the WDL in a speech to the US National Commission for UNESCO in June 2005. The basic idea was to create an Internet-based, easily-accessible collection of the world’s cultural riches that would tell the stories and highlight the achievements of all countries and cultures, thereby promoting cross-cultural awareness and understanding.

The photo above is from the frontispiece of The New and Unknown World: or Description of America and the Southland (1671). The website notes:

This monumental work by the Dutch writer Arnoldus Montanus (1625?-83) reflects the fascination of 17th-century Europe with the New World. Montanus was a Protestant minister and headmaster of the Latin School in the town of Schoonhoven. He wrote books on church history, theology, the history of the Low Countries, and the peoples and cultures of the Americas and Australia. (The “Southland” in the title of his book refers to recently discovered Australia.) Montanus never visited the New World and his work contains numerous errors and fantastic conceptions about the people and animals of the Americas. Nonetheless, it became a standard work in Europe and was widely read for many years. The publisher of the work was the Amsterdam bookseller and engraver Jacob van Meurs, who was active from 1651 to 1680 and specialized in works of history, geography, and travelogues. The book is lavishly illustrated with 125 copper engravings, including 32 folded views, 70 plates, 16 maps, and 7 unusually handsome portraits of famous explorers, each surrounded by baroque framed borders. The book was translated and published in England by the editor and map publisher John Ogilby under the title, America, Being an Accurate Description of the New World (1671).

Click here to check out this particular holding at the WDL. You can even download a digital copy of this book.

Georgia’s Historic Preservation Division circulated its first online edition of Preservation Georgia Online (formerly Preservation Georgia), a weekly newsletter. The newsletter includes stories and a detailed calendar of events relevant to historic preservation in Georgia, including some archaeology events. You can also keep up with grant programs and National Register news. To subscribe, click here.