VIRTUAL LECTURE | Reimagining the Story of Stallings Island, an Archaeological Conservancy Site of Enduring Value

About the Lecture

Excavations in 1929 by Harvard’s Peabody Museum established Stallings Island, Georgia as one of the nation’s most significant archaeological sites of Indigenous history. Thirty-two years later it was declared a National Historic Landmark. In 1998 the site was donated to The Archaeological Conservancy, enabling its long-term care and protection. As we approach the century mark on the excavations that gave Stallings Island its cachet, it is worth reviewing what we have learned about this site since the Peabody dig and how its conservation continues to be warranted by the promise of future learning.

In this presentation, the story of Stallings Island is reimagined through the perspectives of modern investigations, starting in 1999 with National Geographic-sponsored field work and continuing today with collections analysis. What was once considered a distinct culture of foragers who harvested and ate freshwater shellfish, innovated pottery, and occupied permanent villages is now understood as the confluence of local and nonlocal traditions. For those with deep ancestry in the region, Stallings Island was always a sacred place but at around 4,000 years ago—with the influx of people from the low country who made pottery—it became a place of heightened ritual, arguably the context in which new cultural identities were forged. This new story is supported not only by reassessment of the Peabody dig but also the results of geochemical, petrographic, and organic residue analyses of pottery that showcase the benefit of preserving archaeological sites and collections for research potential yet to be realized.

Learn more about the Stallings Island Archaeological Preserve HERE.

About the Presenter

Kenneth E. Sassaman is Hyatt and Cici Brown Professor of Florida Archaeology at the University of Florida. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1991 and has over 40 years of archaeological field experience in the Indigenous history of the American Southeast. His most recent work centers on the challenges of climate change on the gulf coast of Florida over the past 5,000 years. He is the author of over 100 articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of ten books including People of the Shoals: Stallings Culture of the Savannah River Valley (University Press of Florida, 2006).