Submitted by Tammy Herron (trforeha@mailbox.sc.edu)
The Society for Georgia Archaeology proudly presents this year’s lesson plan! It offers information, instruction, pictures, discussions, activities, and suggestions for additional reading and online resources.
The theme SGA has chosen for Georgia Archaeology Month 2010 is Making the Past Come to Life! Exploring Ancient Techniques. We hope that the readers of this lesson plan will become familiar with a range of skills and techniques used by the early inhabitants of Georgia, and perhaps better understand the dynamic interaction between the natural environment and humans and their culture.
Attend our Spring Meeting on May 15th at The Parks at Chehaw, just outside of Albany (map below), and see these techniques demonstrated. You will see flintknapping, cordage, burn and scrape woodworking, weaving and woven bags, bone tools, steatite carving, basket making, pottery, brain tanning of hides, fire by friction, edible/medicinal plants, and other skills. The demonstrators and archaeologists include Ben Kirkland, Scott Jones, James Stewart, Jackie Briggs, Sean Taylor, Carl Etheridge, Brian Floyd, Keith Grenoble, and Nancy Basket. For more on the meeting, click here.
Much of the information in the lesson plan was extracted from Scott Jones’s book, A View to the Past: Experience and Experiment in Primitive Technology, which is discussed elsewhere on this website. For more information about primitive skills or to order A View to the Past, please visit Scott’s website here. The SGA sincerely appreciates Scott’s myriad contributions to this lesson plan.
The lesson plan explores primitive skills, defined as “belonging to or characteristic of an early stage of development.” The plan notes:
As you study the ways of the ancients you begin to notice that it is the relative simplicity of their techniques that allows us to use similar skills in survival situations today. But, you also need to have some knowledge of and respect for your natural environment. [page 8]
Activities include suggestions for making a clay gorget necklace, using a digging stick in creating a garden, and more.
Click here to access the SGA’s 2010 lesson plan that explores techniques that ancient peoples would have used near-daily.
Where to find it
Click above to go to a larger Google interactive map of the area.
Posted online on Thursday, April 29th, 2010