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The Northern and Eastern Expression of Swift Creek Culture Settlement in the Tennessee and Savannah River Valleys Daniel T. Elliott The Swift Creek type site, located on Swift Creek in Bibb County in central Georgia, was excavated in 1936 and 1937 (Kelly and Smith 1975). By 1939 the usual range of the Swift Creek Complicated Stamped ceramic type was listed as “Georgia, northwest Florida, perhaps north into the Tennessee Valley” (Haag 1939b). The pottery was seen as older than Macon Plateau and Lamar and approximately contemporaneous with Stallings Island ¤ber-tempered and Deptford check-stamped wares. Obviously the temporal placement of Swift Creek has been signi¤cantly re¤ned since 1939, but the geographic range data are little improved. The core area of Swift Creek culture has traditionally been considered by archaeologists to be central Georgia, although few studies of the range and settlement distribution of Swift Creek sites on a regional scale have been attempted (McMichael 1960). The core area is assumed in this chapter to include the Alabama, Apalachicola, and Altamaha river systems. This study is an attempt to de¤ne partially the Swift Creek phenomenon by focusing on its northern and eastern peripheral manifestations. Basic settlement and contextual data on approximately seventy-¤ve sites containing Swift Creek pottery located on the periphery are presented. The study focuses primarily on the Tennessee and Savannah river drainage basins but also examines sites with Swift Creek attributes even more remote from the core area. 3 Swift Creek pottery is found in at least ¤ve southeastern states, so a settlement study documenting all known instances of its occurrence would be a major undertaking. In many cases, the presence or absence of Swift Creek pottery can only be determined by hands-on examination of the artifacts from a site. This study relies primarily on published reports that identify Swift Creek components, supplemented by a partial review of state archaeological site ¤les in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia. In a previous settlement study of Swift Creek in northern Georgia, Rudolph (1985, 1986) reviewed the Georgia Archaeological Site File for counties north of the Fall Line and identi¤ed 211 Swift Creek sites; she considered most of these to be of Late Swift Creek age. As Rudolph (1986) noted, the temporal position of Swift Creek in northern Georgia is confused. Wauchope (1966) and others (Rodeffer et al. 1979; Taylor and Smith 1978) place Swift Creek in the Middle Woodland period, whereas others (Garrow 1975; Rudolph 1986) consider it to be Late Woodland. Anderson (1985:45– 47) places Swift Creek Complicated Stamped in a Middle and Late Woodland context (dating from a.d. 200 to 800) for the Piedmont and the upper Savannah River region, although his placement is based on a precious few radiocarbon dates. Anderson and Joseph (1988:231–32) conclude that Swift Creek was not present in the upper Savannah River (Russell Reservoir region ) until the Late Woodland period (circa 1500–1000 b.p.). At the mouth of the Savannah and in adjacent coastal areas, however, Anderson and Joseph (1988:231–32) equate Swift Creek with Deptford Complicated Stamped as de¤ned by DePratter (1991), and they propose a date range of a.d. 100 to 600 for the inner Coastal Plain and Fall Line areas. Although most of the Swift Creek sites in northern Georgia are considered Late Swift Creek, Williams considers mound construction at the Little River and Fortson mounds to be from the Early Swift Creek period, on the basis of ceramic rim-form analysis (Williams 1992; Williams and Shapiro 1990). Although other researchers have focused on analysis of Swift Creek design elements in their studies (Rudolph 1986; Snow 1975), the goal of this study is more rudimentary. It seeks to answer the question, where is Swift Creek, and where is it not? While simplistic in purpose, these assembled data are necessary for any intelligent study of the subject matter. A wealth of information on Swift Creek exists, but it is widely scattered in published form, unpublished manuscripts, and site ¤les and hidden in artifact collec20 Daniel T. Elliott tions at museum repositories scattered across the eastern coast. This study attempts to bring these dispersed data together. Only after sites with Swift Creek research potential are identi¤ed can more sophisticated studies of Swift Creek society be developed. From a settlement studies perspective, at this writing we are in the ¤rst stage of systematic archaeological research on Swift Creek culture. Swift Creek in the Tennessee River Watershed Swift Creek...

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