The Archaeology of Ocmulgee Old Fields, Macon, Georgia

Introduction

me in the preparation of this edition, and I gratefully acknowledge their assistance: Richard I. Ford, Geoffrey Gajewski, Peter Peregrine, Marvin Smith,Stephen Williams,Corinne Wocelka,and,as always,Ronald J.Mason. Page numbers in brackets in the text refer to the original pagination of the dissertation. I would like to dedicate this re-publication to all those archaeologists, past and present, who have worked at the Ocmulgee site and in its collections and learned from its many archaeological splendors. Carol I. Mason xx / Preface During the years immediately following the depression of 1929, a number of large archaeological sites were excavated with labor provided by government agencies. Some of these sites have yet to be written up and their data made generally available; others have provided much of the backbone for archaeological interpretation in the Southeastern United States.The present paper is a report on part of one of the former sites, Ocmulgee National Monument, Macon, Georgia. This site, although not yet analyzed in its entirety , has functioned as one of the latter, with rich amounts of archaeological information available in a series of general and speci¤c reports (Kelly 1938; Fairbanks 1956a). I spent the summer of 1957 and the summer and fall of 1958 at Ocmulgee National Monument working with the archaeological collections and preparing the descriptive sections of this report. Dealing with material twenty-¤ve years after its excavation involves some special problems in addition to the expectable ones of loss and misplacement during storage. For one thing, the unusually cumbersome ¤eld nomenclature has had to be retained for the bene¤t of those who may wish to use the site materials in the future; this is because the nomenclature is tied into the Ocmulgee National Monument catalogue system and is the only way of locating speci¤c materials in the large collections. In addition, certain of the ¤eld records, photographic negatives in particular, have not aged very gracefully and have thus hindered the analysis. I am grateful to a number of scholars who generously made their special knowledge available to me and in so doing contributed substantially to my understanding of the Ocmulgee material: John M. Goggin, University of Florida, who identi¤ed and dated the majolica; Ivor Noel Hume, Colonial Williamsburg, who identi¤ed and dated other European ceramics; Harold L. Peterson, National Park Service, who provided dates and identi¤cations for the gun parts; J. C. Harrington, who examined some of the pipes; and Original 1963 Preface David L. DeJarnette, University of Alabama, who kindly permitted me to examine trade materials from the Childersburg site. The superintendent, Louis R. Caywood, and staff of Ocmulgee National Monument made my stay in Macon most enjoyable,and I thank them all for their many kindnesses during the course of my research. Other National Park Service personnel, Wilfred D. Logan and John M. Corbett, have provided aid in many ways, and their assistance is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to express my special thanks to Richard A. Marshall, University of Missouri, for providing the sherd drawings of Ocmulgee Fields Incised designs . My husband, Ronald J. Mason, deserves my thanks for his moral support during the writing of this report and for his substantial contributions in the form of photographing speciments, preparing illustrations, and criticizing the manuscript. I also would like to express here my appreciation to Charles H. Fairbanks , Florida State University, who provided the impetus for this study and aided it materially through his encouragement, criticism, and always valuable counsel. Two institutions deserve special mention for their direct and indirect contributions.The staff and director,Donald Pieters,of the St.Norbert College Library, West DePere, Wisconsin, have been most helpful in obtaining for me many special books. Much of the following report was written while I was a fellow of the National Science Foundation. The generous ¤nancial support of that agency is deeply appreciated. Carol I. Mason xxii / Original 1963 Preface The Archaeology of Ocmulgee Old Fields ...