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.

What places in Georgia with historic importance are most under threat right now? In late October 2012, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation released its list of 2012 Places in Peril. This year all are standing structures, and four have white (or nearly white) columns. One is a pavilion from an amusement park in Gainesville and another is an embattled historic dormitory on the UGA campus in Athens.

The Golden Isles Archaeological Society will hold their monthly meeting Tuesday, March 1, 2011, at St. Simons Elementary School. Dr. Kevin Kiernan, board member of the Society for Georgia Archaeology is lecturer for the March meeting. Kiernan’s topic is titled Archaeology and the Visitor’s Club of the Brunswick Board of Trade in the Late 1930s.

Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s remains have been buried twice? At his funeral in 1968, they were buried at South-View Cemetery on the south side of Atlanta. Then, in 1977, Dr. King’s remains were moved to the famous marble tomb at the King Center that is part of the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site. These events were accompanied by important rituals. Rituals are important components of cultural behavior, but they preserve poorly—and at best incompletely—in archaeological contexts. What are the implications of this for reconstructions of the past based on archaeological data?

Recently, a team of volunteer and professional archaeologists directed by professionals from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, West Florida University, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources have discovered the site of the original lightkeeper’s house on Sapelo Island. Since the collapse of the ruins, probably in the early 1900s, its location had been lost. The SGA leadership visited the lighthouse in February 2010, perhaps walking over the buried remains of the house.

Augusta followed some of the broader trends of urbanization experienced across the USA in the 19th century. As the city spread from its original core area, it took on many characteristics of a modern city, including residential neighborhoods that were divided based on class, race, or other attributes. In this example, a planned residential development specifically incorporated prevailing social ideologies at the turn of the century. The development was designed and built to separate residents on the basis of race and class, which helped to reinforce ideologies of the appropriate racial and economic social positions and roles.

In January 2011, John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s daughter Caroline announced that tens of thousands of the most important papers (including drafts of speeches), images, and other materials from her father’s presidency are now viewable online on JFK’s Presidential Library and Museum website. These records provide valuable and detailed information about how an individual thought that are usually unavailable to archaeologists. (Photo is from Associated Press, online here.)

The city of Atlanta has undertaken a visionary project to improve the transportation network for pedestrians. Under construction is the Atlanta Beltline project, which includes a 22-mile loop of pedestrian-friendly rail transit, almost 1300 acres of new parkland, and 33-miles of foot trails. Such projects are examples of changes in land use that affect historic and archaeological preservation.

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

Rebecca Burns uses photographs and archival information to tell the history of Atlanta in her 2010 book Atlanta: Yesterday & Today. The author tells Atlanta’s story by neighborhood, with thematic sections, rather than through a single chronological storyline. The lively text is augmented by historical and modern images to convey “the character, moxie, and extraordinary history that combined to earn Atlanta its status as the capital of the New South.” Consider how the order and organization of a history may affect how the reader perceives the places and times discussed.

In ancient times, humans lived their lives in the outdoors, although perhaps they spent some time in a cave or rockshelter. Now, the majority of people live in towns and cities. This process of urbanization has myriad implications for archaeologists. This Weekly Ponder considers the concept of the built environment.

Researchers at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah identified two historic-period cemeteries. One had been buried beneath a parking lot for over fifty years; it had thirty-seven graves. A second cemetery was identified from an 1889 map as a “Negro Cemetery,” and had well over three hundred burials. All human remains and artifacts were carefully excavated and respectfully moved to Belmont Cemetery, and the Installation’s Garrison Commander and Chaplain participated in a rededication ceremony in conjunction with African-American History Month in February 2009. Article includes photographs of selected grave goods.

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.

Even a cursory examination of cross-cultural data indicates that around the globe, in many societies, peoples with many belief systems have built structures important to them on high places. In addition, the structures are often unusually tall when compared to residential buildings. Indeed, important buildings are often tall, large, or both. Why?

An important event in the history of the telephone happened on Jekyll Island. If you wander around the historic area south of the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, now the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, you will find a plexiglass box encompassing an old telephone. Do you know what this commemorates?

The Blood Mountain shelter on the Appalachian Trail provokes thoughts about the network of prehistoric footpaths that criss-crossed Georgia.

Elberton’s famous subterranean granite deposit drew Italian stoneworkers in the early twentieth century, making Elberton’s demographics different from most rural Georgia communities today.

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.

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.

Next time you’re in Augusta, go downtown and visit the Springfield community. Springfield community is just west of the original downtown Augusta, right on the river. The community was a free African American community established around the time of the Revolutionary War. The heart of the community was and is Springfield Baptist Church, which was probably established between 1787 and 1793.

Humans are humans; we tend to like some of the same places on the landscape no matter who we are and when we are alive. This means that some of the same places were occupied over and over. What makes a location more—or less—attractive to human visitors or inhabitants?

Southern Research has recently carried out a number of projects in Georgia that may be of interest to the members of SGA. Barnes Cemetery Relocation, Bibb County The Barnes Cemetery was first recorded in 2007 during a reconnaissance for the Macon-Bibb Industrial Authority conducted by Southern Research. The reconnaissance was required by a site certification [...]

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, [...]

David Macaulay is an author and illustrator who has written many interesting books. One of my favorites is Motel of the Mysteries, published in 1979 by Houghton Mifflin (Boston). The book is now out of print, so I always look for a copy at yard sales and flea markets—and every once in a while I’m [...]

This year our Society held its Fall Picnic on November 3 at Fife Plantation, later than usual due to warnings about heat and mosquitoes, the hazards of visiting a Savannah River plantation. Nevertheless, after a slightly chilly start, it was a perfect fall day with brilliant sunshine lending a glow to what were once rice [...]

After several years in which the position was vacant, the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest filled the position of District Archaeologist on the Oconee Ranger District in Eatonton, Georgia, in April 2005. James Wettstaed took this position after working as an archaeologist with the U.S. Forest Service for 13 years in Missouri and four years in Montana. [...]