Recent Developments in Southeastern Archaeology

This book represents a period by period synthesis of southeastern prehistory designed for high school and college students, avocational archaeologists, and interested members of the general public. It also serves as a basic reference for professional archaeologists worldwide on the record of a remarkable region. The book summarizes the history of archaeological research in the Southeast, and the record of the Native American inhabitants of the Southeast, from initial colonization in the late Pleistocene to the complex societies of the late prehistoric and early European Contact period. The emphasis is on research conducted in the last two decades, and particularly in the new millennium, after AD 2000. The volume demonstrates that southeastern archaeology is a dynamic and exciting field to study and practice, with important contributions to make to our understanding of human prehistory, and to archaeological method and theory. The Southeast has a rich and well-documented archaeological record, useful for the exploration of big questions of interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and indeed anyone who has wondered about the past, such as how the initial colonization and settlement of the region occurred during the last glacial period; how people, once established, interacted with one another and with the biotic and physical landscape; how people in this diverse temperate forest environment developed and adopted agriculture, in one of the few centers of independent domestication anywhere on the planet; and how complex societies rose and fell over time. The objectives are to educate and to inspire, to attract new people to work in the region and in the process expand ongoing research, so that more can be done and learned.