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11 Archaeology, Geography, and the Creek War in Alabama Craig T. Sheldon Jr. This chapter is a brief survey of geographical and archaeological information relating to the Creek War during the period between the Battle of Burnt Corn (July 27, 1813) and the Treaty of Fort Jackson (august 9, 1814). My particular focus is on the Upper Creeks and their role in the conflict due to the simple fact that their territory was overwhelmingly the scene of most action during the war.1 Based on historic accounts, we can identify hundreds of Creek War–era archaeological sites built by both Creeks and americans, including towns, camps for hunting, war and refugee areas, homesteads, mills, battle sites, and forts.The physical locations of most are not known. presently, over two hundred sites with diagnostic Creek artifacts are recorded, but how many of these were occupied during the war is also unknown. Systematical investigations of historic Indian sites in the Southeast are comparatively new. Most early archaeological research concentrated on prehistoric sites “uncontaminated ” by european contact. In 1948, during a search for the hernando de Soto–period site of Coosa, David DeJarnette excavated 1Ta1, which proved to be a mid-eighteenth-century Creek site. Since then, surveys and excavations in alabama and Georgia have produced an increasing body of data on historic Creek Indian settlement patterns, architecture, mortuary customs, diet, culture change, and material culture, mostly related to the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During the 1960s and 1970s, preconstruction and post-construction surveys and salvage excavation projects were conducted in the reservoir areas of Logan Martin, h. Neely henry, and Weiss Dams on the upper Coosa River and R. L. harris Dam on the Tallapoosa River. Similar investigations in the reservoir areas of the West point, Walter F. George, George W. andrews, and Jim Woodruff Dams on the Chattahoochee River provided information on the distribution of Lower Creek sites. archaeology, Geography, and the Creek War in alabama 201 Surveys and excavations in the areas flooded by Claiborne, Millers Ferry, and Jones Bluff Dams on the alabama River revealed an overall lack of historic Indian sites, except in the vicinity of Montgomery. a similar dearth of historic-period aboriginal sites was found in surveys along the Tombigbee, Black Warrior, and Conecuh Rivers.2 archaeological excavations have occurred at over fifteen historic late eighteenth - and early nineteenth-century Creek sites in alabama. on the upper Coosa,in the vicinity of Gadsden,a number of sites were excavated,but they dated to the seventeenth century. Moving south along the Coosa River, major archaeological excavations have been conducted at the early eighteenthcentury Creek sites at Woods Island (1SC40) and Coosa (1Ta1) and at the Creek War sites of Talladega (1Ta308) and Tallushatchee (1Ca162). Near the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, there have been large-scale investigations at ocheaupofau or hickory Ground (1ee89) and amateur collections made atTuskegee (1ee1). along theTallapoosa River, there have been excavations at Nuyaka (1Tp25), horseshoe Bend battlefield (1Tp 23),Tohopeka (1Tp24),Tuckabatchee (1ee 52), hoithlewaulee (1ee328), Fusihatchee (1ee191), and Coolome (1MT3). Most of the occupations found at these sites date from the eighteenth century; very few of the artifacts and features could be specifically attributed to the early nineteenth-century Creeks. Vernon knight’s excavations at Tuckabatchee, which was occupied until 1836, yielded one of the better-defined nineteenth-century archaeological assemblages . Some of the artifacts and features reported by Gregory Waselkov and John Cottier probably relate to one of the war camps at the refugee settlement of hoithlewaulee (1ee328).3 a number of contemporaneous US sites, mostly military, have also been archaeologically investigated in alabama. These include Forts Strother, Williams , and Jackson on the Coosa River, Fort Decatur on the Tallapoosa River, Fort Mitchell on the Chattahoochee River,and Forts Montgomery and Mims on the lower alabama.4 Before examining the actual and possible physical signs of the Creek War of 1813 and 1814 in central alabama that might be detected through combined historic archaeological and ethnohistorical approaches, it is important to remember the limitations of archaeology. over 190 years of agricultural activity in central alabama have destroyed many architectural and other archaeological features and have mixed artifacts from the war period with those of earlier deposits. Fort Mims, horseshoe Bend, autossee, Tuskegee , Fusihatchee, and many other Creek sites have been damaged by artifact looting and selective surface collecting. Many of the iconic insignia of the Red Stick faction, such as animal skins, war paint, and the red-painted...

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