Dr. King last spoke to GAAS members in March 2012 on the meaning of
Mississippian imagery found at Etowah. We look forward to hearing about
remote sensing and the findings from this summer’s dig at the same site.
The meeting will be held at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History on
Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at 6:30 p.m.
Abstract: Summer Testing at the Etowah Site
Between 2005 and 2008 the Etowah Archaeo-Geophysical Survey conducted
remote sensing surveys at the Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site
in Cartersville, GA. The result of that work was a complete gradiometer
map of the archaeological features visible using magnetism. Among the
discoveries made using those data was that it is possible to distinguish
Early Mississippi (AD 900-1200) residential structures from Middle and
Late Mississippi (AD 1200-1550) without digging just using gradiometer
data. This summer a field school sponsored by the University of SC and
Texas State University tested this proposition. In this paper I present
our preliminary results.
Biographical Sketch
Adam King has worked for the University of South Carolina since 1998 and
serves as Research Associate Professor in the South Carolina Institute
of Archaeology and Anthropology and Special Projects Archaeologist for
the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program. He received a B.S.
in Finance from Penn State University in 1987, a M.A. in Anthropology
from University of Georgia in 1991, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from
Penn State University in 1996. His research interests focus on the early
history of Native Americans, particularly during the Mississippian
Period (AD 1000-1600). Dr. King has ongoing research projects exploring
the development of Mississippian communities in the Etowah River Valley
of northwestern Georgia and the Middle Savannah River Valley on the
Georgia-South Carolina border. His research attempts to understand how
Mississippian societies in these areas came into being and changed over
the course of their individual histories using traditional
archaeological excavation coupled with remote sensing and the study of
ancient imagery and its meaning.
Posted online on Monday, February 10th, 2014