A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication
A 17th-century trading post and Indian town in central Georgia
reveal evidence of culture contact and change.
Ocmulgee Old Fields near Macon, Georgia, is the site of a Lower
Creek village and associated English trading house dating from the
late 17th and early 18th centuries. It was excavated in the early
1930s as part of a WPA project directed by A. R. Kelly, which
focused primarily on the major Mississippian temple mounds of Macon
Plateau. The specific data for the Old Fields was not analyzed
until nearly 30 years after the excavation.
Part of the significance of this site lies in its secure
identification with a known group of people and the linkage of
those people with recognizable archaeological remains. The Old
Fields site was among the very first for which this kind of
identification was possible and stands at the head of a continuing
tradition of historic sites archaeology in the Southeast.
Carol I. Mason's classic study of the Ocmulgee Old Fields site
has been a model for contact-period Indian archaeology since the
1960s. The report includes a discussion of the historic setting and
an analysis of the archaeological materials with an identification
of the Lower Creek town and possibly of the English trader who
lived there. Now, for the first time, the original report is widely
available in book form. With a new foreword by the author and a new
introduction from Southeastern archaeology expert Marvin T. Smith,
readers have the benefit of a contemporary view of this very fine
piece of careful scholarship.
Carol I. Mason is Adjunct Professor of Archaeology at Lawrence
University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and author of "Wisconsin
Indians: Prehistory to Statehood."Marvin T. Smith is Professor of
Anthropology at Valdosta State University and author of "Coosa: The
Rise and Fall of a Southeastern Mississippian Chiefdom."
Additional reviews:
"This volume is valuable as a landmark in Southeastern research.
It is somewhat outdated in its archaeological comparisons, but it
is an excellent source for site findings and historical
documentation. . . . The book provides greater insight into more
current documents on the topic of these early relationships between
the Old and New Worlds in the Southeast. It is a starting point
from which to move forward and is valuable as a catalyst for future
research."--"Southeastern Archaeology "
" Mason's work presents the analysis and interpretation of a
large body of material excavated by Works Progress Administration
archaeologists during the 1930s and, in this case, continued into
the 1940s. Large-scale projects, undertaken by field crews
numbering in the hundreds of workers, amassed quantities of
artifactual material and supporting documentation. In many
instances, substantial amounts of material remain unanalyzed and
unreported to this day. . . . The Ocmulgee Old Fields site with its
mix of indigenous and European people, local material culture and
trade goods, and varied functions represents an opportunity to
study the Lower Creeks between 1670 and 1717. . . .I recommend
(this volume) to all colleagues laboring to understand the early
historic peiod in the Southeast."--"The Florida
Anthropologist"
"A masterful blend of meticulous archaeological analysis and
wide-ranging historical research . . . with extraordinary style and
wisdom."--"Journal of Field Archaeology"
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