Members of Hernando de Soto's 1540 march through the interior of the southeastern US, as well as other explorers at that time, described encounters with complex and powerful Indian chiefdoms. Until this work by Marvin T. Smith, first published in 1987, scholars had argued about the role that Europeans played in the disintegration of that Mississippian culture. Rejecting the notion that the aboriginal nations acculturated to a European pattern, Smith shows that Old World epidemic diseases caused immediate population loss in interior areas. He develops a chronological framework for the period 1540-1670 based on European trade goods, which allows him to date the aboriginal sites and to examine the tempo of demographic shifts with more precision than archaeologists before him commanded. The effects of early European contact - documented with data that include artifacts associated with burial practices, public works, and craft specialisation - travelled farther than the European explorers themselves, as depopulation led to political breakdown and social collapse. One product of this collapse, Smith argues, was the Creek Confederacy of the 18th century, a mix of refugee populations who banded together in defence of alliances against the Europeans and other Indians.

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"

Writing about a powerful Native American society at the dawn of European contact, Marvin Smith, in a colorfully illustrated book, traces the rise and collapse of the chiefdom of Coosa, located in the Ridge and Valley province of northwestern Georgia and adjacent states.

From humble beginnings, Coosa became one of the most important chiefdoms in the Southeast, dominating a territory from present eastern Tennessee to central Alabama. Following contact with three Spanish expeditions in the sixteenth century, Coosa began its rapid descent. Disease, population movements, political collapse, and changes in subsistence and technology enveloped the population in the ensuing years. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the once powerful chiefdom had been reduced to a few towns in the Creek Confederacy.

Explaining for the first time this remarkable demise, Smith blends historical and archaeological evidence to tell the complex story. Written for a general interest audience and generously illustrated with color and black-and-white photos, Coosa also will be a valuable reference work for the study of the material culture of the contact period.