We report on our excavation and radiocarbon dating program at the Lamar Mound and Village in the Ocmulgee River Basin of central Georgia. Based on its ceramic assemblage, Lamar has long thought to have been occupied intensively during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and it is one of the regions that the De Soto entrada came through in 1540 as it made its way through what is now Georgia. Excavations in the 1930s revealed several houses and two mounds—one a pyramidal platform mound (Mound A) and the other a spiral mound (Mound B) with a flat summit—all of which were surrounded by a palisade wall. Subsequent work by Williams in 1996 provided further information on the construction history of Mound A and the spatial layout of the village. Our new radiocarbon dating program and Bayesian analysis of dates not only provides a more precise chronology, but also allows us to link events in the village with mound building and use of Mound A at what is likely the capital of the province of Ichisi.

We conduct a synthetic archaeological and ethnohistoric dating program to assess the timing and tempo of the spread of peaches, the first Eurasian domesticate to be adopted across Indigenous eastern North America, into the interior American Southeast by Indigenous communities who quickly "Indigenized" the fruit. In doing so, we present what may be the earliest absolute dates for archaeological contexts containing preserved peach pits in what is today the United States in the early to mid-16(th) century. Along with our broader chronological modeling, these early dates suggest that peaches were likely in the interior prior to permanent Spanish settlement in the American Southeast and that peaches spread independently of interactions with Spanish colonizers. We further argue that that eventual spread of peaches was structured exclusively by Indigenous communities and the ecologies produced through long-term Indigenous land management and land use practices, highlighting and centering the agency of Indigenous societies in the socioecological process of colonization.

Democratic cooperation is a particularly complex type of arrangement that requires attendant institutions to ensure that the problems inherent in collective action do not subvert the public good. It is perhaps due to this complexity that historians, political scientists, and others generally associate the birth of democracy with the emergence of so-called states and center it geographically in the “West,” where it then diffused to the rest of the world. We argue that the archaeological record of the American Southeast provides a case to examine the emergence of democratic institutions and to highlight the distinctive ways in which such long-lived institutions were—and continue to be—expressed by Native Americans. Our research at the Cold Springs site in northern Georgia, USA, provides important insight into the earliest documented council houses in the American Southeast. We present new radiocarbon dating of these structures along with dates for the associated early platform mounds that place their use as early as cal AD 500. This new dating makes the institution of the Muskogean council, whose active participants have always included both men and women, at least 1,500 years old, and therefore one of the most enduring and inclusive democratic institutions in world history.

Hernando de Soto's expedition through the southeastern United States between 1539 and 1543 is often regarded as a watershed moment for the collapse of Indigenous societies across the region. Historical narratives have proposed that extreme depopulation as a result of early contact destabilized Indigenous economies, politics, networks, and traditions. Although processes of depopulation and transformation were certainly set in motion by this and earlier colonial encounters, the timing, temporality, and heterogeneous rhythms of postcontact Indigenous histories remain unclear. Through the integration of radiocarbon and archaeological data from the Mississippian earthen platform mound at Dyar (9GE5) in central Georgia, we present a case of Indigenous endurance and resilience in the Oconee Valley that has long been obfuscated by materially based chronologies and typologies. Bayesian chronological modeling suggests that Indigenous Mississippian traditions persisted for up to 130 years beyond contact with European colonizers. We argue that advances in modeling radiocarbon dates, along with meaningful consultation/collaboration with descendant communities, can contribute to efforts that move us beyond a reliance on materially based chronologies that can distort and erase Indigenous histories.

The Irene Mound site (9CH1) was a Middle and Late Mississippian site (ca. AD 1150–1450) situated on a bluff overlooking the lower Savannah River, Georgia (USA), a few kilometers upstream from the Atlantic Ocean. The 2.4 ha site consisted of a sequence of superimposed layers referred to as temple mounds, as well as a burial mound, a rotunda, a few residences, and other structures. It is interpreted as the residence of a chiefly lineage. The presence of animals rare or absent in other precolonial coastal assemblages distinguishes the Irene assemblage from others along the coast. Some of the animals exhibit atypical, even dangerous, behavior, others have elaborate feathers or fine fur, and many are notable coastal fishers. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) specimens in the assemblage are dominated by portions from the body. Irene may provide a zooarchaeological standard for assessing evidence of site functions and status in other coastal assemblages.

ABSTRACTFormally established in the fall of 1947, the Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Georgia is an archaeological research and collection repository. It is considered one of the premier institutions for curation of archaeological collections from the American Southeast. For over 70 years, the Laboratory has served as a repository for objects and associated records generated from archaeological projects and research undertaken by faculty, students, CRM professionals, and state and federal agencies. The Laboratory curates over 20,000 cubic feet of artifacts as well as paper and digital archives. In addition, the Laboratory houses the Georgia Archaeological Site File and manages data from more than 59,000 archaeological sites, including over 11,500 archaeological reports. In this paper, we explore implementation procedures for bringing legacy collections up to modern curation standards. We also outline how we migrate the data on paper records into the digital realm, articulating them within a comprehensive framework.

This paper presents an overview of archaeological investigations conducted at Darien Bluff, McIntosh County, Georgia, over the past 75 years. The discovery of lost artifacts, missing excavation records, and several draft reports provided an opportunity to obtain a comprehensive overview of Spanish Mission period activity at the site of Mission Santo Domingo de Talaje, a primarily seventeenth-century mission that once stood on the banks of the Altamaha River. Included are archaeological and historical perspectives of the researchers who excavated the site and new interpretations by the authors that draw on recently relocated artifacts and excavation records.

Advanced imaging tools such as 3D technologies and photogrammetry are rapidly becoming the norm in archaeological laboratories throughout the world. Until recently, many of these technologies required specialized knowledge often beyond the training of most archaeologists. However, new advances, in the ease of use of software and less expensive equipment, have made these technologies more accessible. Despite this, the technology can still be daunting. Indeed, the inexperienced operator can sometimes produce results that are unwieldy and inaccurate. Further, no single technique provides a panacea for digital curation and preservation, since no one program is appropriate every type of artifact. Here we present a case study using reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) on a copper plate from Chauga (38OC47) in Oconee County, South Carolina, that was not amenable to other imaging techniques. We found that RTI provided us with a way to record new digital artifact data thus providing us with new information about the plate.