Southeastern Archaeology News

A two-story log cabin, possibly Cherokee in origin, has been discovered resting behind the wooden boards of an old hotel built in the 1840s. Legend has long held that such a structure existed and it is now believed that the legend has come to life.  Testing, scientific and ephemeral, is underway to determine the age of the cabin as well as the person or group that built it.

The Cave Spring Historical Society is currently raising money to purchase the hotel/cabin with the intention of restoring, at least the cabin, and the hotel, if possible.  Because such structures are quickly disappearing, the educational and cultural value of the cabin could impact the entire southeastern United States.  Additional information as well as photographs can be found online at www.cavespringga.com and www.cavespringga.blogspot.com. 

 --submitted by Paulette Harbin

Thanks Paulette!

Wakulla Springs Lodge site may be Pre-Clovis
Friday afternoon featured a symposium on the Wakulla Springs Lodge site 14 miles south of Tallahassee, Florida. The symposium reported on research at the famed Paleo site conducted in 2008 and funded by the National Georgraphic Society.

Two big headlines were announced:

First, researchers have good reason to think the site may date to 16,000 years before present - in other words, making it a contender as a "Pre-Clovis site," or earlier than the first Native Americans used to be thought to be in North America.

Two, the skull of a mastodon has been found in the spring.

Florida archaeologist Louis Tesar kicked off the symposium, reporting on a 1994-1995 excavation there. He described the Paleo artifacts found, including a cremation burial dated 10,000 years before present.

Jim Dunbar further reported on the excavations and geoarchaeological work, including the discovery of a "Paleo blad knife.
Jack Rink reported on the use of Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating at the site, describing the complex science behind the technique.

A paper by Kevin Porter and Andrew Hemmings broke the news that in August 2007, a skeletal fragment was found on the bottom of Wakulla Springs, and that the remains likely are that of an American mastodon. Much more of the animal's bones could be present. A fragment was collected and sent off for dating, results of which are forthcoming.

Remarkably, while mastodon bones have been found at Wakulla Springs since the mid-19th century, most have been lost (including some that went down on a shipwreck off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina).

Concluding the symposium, discussant Glen Doran suggested that Florida archaeologists are going to have to start digging deeper if they're going to find evidence of Pre-Clovis. And a big question yet to be determined about the mastodon remains on the bottom of the spring is whether its demise was due to "cultural interactions," ie was it killed by humans? If it was, there should be evidence of such on its bones.

Doran then opened up the symposium to a lively Q&A, participating in which was high-profile Pre-Clovis archaeologist Al Goodyear of Topper Site fame.

Session on First Americans reports on search for submarine Paleo sites

The Society for American Archaeology 2009 annual meeting saved the best for last: Sunday morning featured a three-hour session exploring aspects of THE BIG QUESTION in North American archaeology, the First Americans, with a series of papers under the overview of "New Findings on the First Americans."

It takes a lot to get archaeologists up at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning while at a professional meeting, but this one did, and it was standing room only.

The sessions kicked off with a discussion of a cache of possible Clovis performs found during a salvage excavation in Iowa in the 1970s, which has languished unrecognized in storage until it was recognized as such recently.

Al Goodyear then gave an overview of 40 years of work in the central Savannah River Valley, including South Carolina's famed Topper Site, with a possible Pre-Clovis layer. Al reported that they're trying to piece together settlement systems, subsistence and movement range for the "Allendale-Brier Creek Clovis" people. Work on the 2009 season is set to begin in just one week.

Andrew Hemmings next presented what was, at least to this attendee, the most interesting report of the session, about his and his colleagues' 2008 research on the submerged north eastern Gulf Coast continental shelf of Florida.

With funding from the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration, Hemmings and his colleagues are using side-scanning radar and remotely operated underwater vehicles to locate what is likely the ancient channel of the Suwannee River, with the ultimate goal of locating ancient coastlines and Paleo sites that were flooded by the Gulf when sea levels began to rise 10,000 years ago.

"Rivers would have been magnets for human occupation and utilization, and by extension early human habitation should be located in close juxtaposition to them," Hemmings said. Clusters of Paleo sites have previously been documented offshore along channels and sink holes across the northern Gulf of Mexico. "By extrapolation, earlier sites should be located further offshore on earlier inundated portions of this landscape," Hemmings said. These sites should be well preserved and easily accessible. Other areas of the Gulf are covered in deep layers of sediments, but one particular area that Hemmings showed on a map should not be too deeply buried. And when it was inundated thousands of years ago by rising seas, it's believed the inundation was comparatively quiet, reducing the erosive effects.

Hemmings and his colleagues' 2008 research focused on three sub areas. "This field research confirmed many of our 2007 hypotheses," Hemmings reported, "in that we successfully located and high-resolution mapped several kilometers of a large, essentially intact and infilled Paleo river channel east of the Florida middle grounds. We identified additional buried stream and river channels, some with clearly visible overbank deposits, located and identified more than 100 infilled, stratified sink hole features with obvious but as-yet untapped potential for organic and artifact preservation, and -- perhaps most spectacularly -- mapped nearly 10 square kilometers of intact, shallow water, near-shore sand ripples and ridges just inside the late glacial maximum shoreline, at a depth of over 300 feet of water." The now submerged, ancient shoreline is remarkably well preserved, he said.  

"An important methodological epiphany," he said, "was the practical demonstration during our 2008 field work that via multiple forms of data collection, we were able to identify and locate high-interest targets that were not visible to one or another remote sensing device alone."

Hemmings noted that other researchers are assisting him and his colleagues, underscoring the "enormous potential for future investigations of inundated Late Pleistocene landscapes."

This year, the researchers will build on their work, with the goal of finding an early Paleo-Indian, Clovis era or potentially Pre-Clovis site.

Other interesting papers presented during the session included a fascinating report on a Clovis site in Sonora, Mexico, (south of Tucson), an area these days best known for its drug trafficking, along with reports on work in Pennsylvania and the Rocky Mountains.

Some two dozen archaeologists gathered in St. Petersburg, Fla., from Friday evening February 20 through Sunday February 22 to discuss the archaeology of the Weeden Island people, who lived along the Gulf Coast a thousand years ago or more.

The gathering was hosted by a new nonprofit group formed last year called the Alliance for Weedon Island Archaeological Research and Education Inc. (AWIARE), and held at the Weedon Island Preserve on the shores of Tampa Bay. (Note: the famous mound site found on Weedon Island was referred to by early 20^th century archaeologists as Weeden Island, and that's how the archaeological culture has been known since.)

Highlights included collections of Weeden Island pottery brought from around the Southeast, some as far away as Louisiana and Arkansas. There were also artifact displays by local collectors. Talks were given by well-known Southeastern archaeologists including Tom Pluckhahn, AWIARE President Brent Weisman, and Ann Cordell.

Other archaeologists in attendance included Nancy Marie White of the University of South Florida, Michael Russo of the National Park Service (who is finishing up a new paper on the Hare Hammock Site near Mexico Beach, Fla.), Jeffrey Mitchem of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, Louis Tesar of the Bureau of Archaeological Research in Tallahassee, George Luer of Sarasota, Keith Stephenson of Savannah River Archaeology, and Richard Weinstein of Coastal Environments Inc. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Archaeological technologist Robert Tykot of the University of South Florida gave a fascinating talk on X-ray fluorescence, showing how a handheld device can be taken into the field or to collection facilities and used to quickly analyze the elemental composition of sherds and other artifacts.

The gathering was capped on Sunday with a talk by archaeologist David Brose called "Breaking the Mould: New Views on the Meaning of Weeden Island."

On Saturday June 7, Etowah Mounds Museum at the Etowah Indian Mounds state park in Cartersville,

Georgia, will host Discovery Day.

According to Jack Walker, president of the Northwest Georgia Archaeological Society, and Program

Chairman Jim Langford, the Discovery Day program at Etowah will be one of the most important

presentations and discussions in Georgia archaeology in many years.

"We decided to move our meeting to coincide with the presentations by Dr. Adam King, and

Dr. Kent Reilly, two of the country's most important researchers on Mississippian period culture

and archaeology,"� states Mr. Walker.

Dr. King will lead a group of high-technology archaeologists during the period of June 3-6 as

they use magnetic resistivity and other technologies to give a fascinating look at what is underground

at Etowah. This work is a continuation of work begun several years ago by Dr. King.

Working with other scientists the past few months, particularly Chester Walker of Archaeo-Geophysical

Associates, Dr. King has been able to learn remarkable new information about how Etowah grew

and changed as a key and powerful political center in the period 1100-1500AD. He will give a

review of all of the remote sensing science employed at Etowah, including magnetic resistivity and

ground penetrating radar (GPR), and what he has learned from this work up until June 7^th.

Some of the new key findings may be discovered during the 1-2 days before the presentation.

"These new technologies allow us to see houses, walls, plazas, burials and most other key features

of the village in remarkable detail. In the traditional world of archaeology, recovering this kind of

information would take 40 years of digging and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars," states

Mr. Langford.

Dr. King has been the primary researcher at Etowah over the past few years -- under a

cooperative agreement with the Georgia Office of the State Archaeologist and the Georgia

Department of Natural Resources and its State Parks and Historic Sites Division.

He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Penn State University and another

graduate degree from the University of Georgia. He is currently Research Associate Professor

at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Dr. F. Kent Reilly is Professor of Anthropology at Texas State University. Dr. Reilly's main research

interests converge around the religion, art, and visual validation of elite authority in New World chiefdoms

and early states. His primary focus is Mesoamerican Civilization, the ancient Olmec and Maya, and the

art and iconography of the prehistoric Mississippian Period of the Southeastern United States. He

recieved his Ph.D. from University of Texas in 1994.

Discovery Day at the Etowah Mounds Site gives the public a chance to come out and learn more about

the Etowah site and early American Indian cultures. Children are welcome. A small fee is charged for

admission to the site.

The Northwest Georgia group will next meet at New Echota on July 10th at 7:30 pm.

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About Fernbank Museum of Natural History

As one of the South’s preeminent museums, Fernbank Museum of Natural History is a gateway for discovery

and exploration, unfolding the story of the earth’s history, the physical universe, the environment and human

culture through exhibitions, educational programs and immersive films in the IMAX® Theatre. Opened in 1992,

Fernbank is accredited by the American Association of Museums and is “Atlanta’s Home to Dinosaurs,”

a reputation highlighted by Giants of the Mesozoic, a distinctive permanent exhibition which features the world’s

largest dinosaurs. Fernbank is also home to the St. Catherines Island Foundation and Edward John Noble

Foundation Collection, which features over one million Native American and Spanish artifacts from the Spanish

mission period in Georgia. Some of these objects will go on display later in 2008. For further information, visit the

museum’s Web site at www.fernbankmuseum.org .



About Rayonier
Rayonier is a leading international forest products company with three core businesses: timber, real estate and

performance fibers. The company owns, leases or manages 2.6 million acres of timber and land in the United States

and New Zealand. The company’s holdings include approximately 200,000 acres with residential and commercial

development potential along the fast-growing Interstate 95 corridor between Savannah, Georgia, and Daytona Beach, Florida.

Its performance fibers business is the world’s leading producer of high-value specialty cellulose fibers. Approximately 40 percent of the company’s sales are outside the U.S. to customers in more than 50 countries. Rayonier is structured

as a real estate investment trust.

Acknowledgements and Credits:

• Discoverer–Josh Landon
• Landowner and Donor–Rayonier Corporation
• Technical Assistance–Georgia Department of Natural Resources and U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service