Troup Factory: Archaeological Investigations of a Nineteenth Century Mill Site in LaGrange, Georgia.

Troup Factory, the first cotton mill in Troup County, and the second such plant in Georgia, was established in 1846 on Flat Shoal\u27s Creek. The mill was in operation throughout the latter half of the 19th century before being relocated to the city of LaGrange. Troup Factory sheetings and homespun were standards of excellence across a widespread area of Georgia. The purpose of this paper is to document the history of the mill site through archival research and archaeological survey. Through these means a better understanding of a once prestigious mill site was obtained in order to illuminate an important period of Georgia history

Defining a Civil War battlefield: recent archaeological investigations at the Pickett\u27s Mill State Historic Site, Paulding County, Georgia.

Recent investigations at the Pickett\u27s Mill State Historic Site have yielded new insights into the Civil War battle that occurred in May 1864. Military and historical sources have documented that the major battle took place in a ravine, but that skirmishes also occurred in adjacent areas, including a large, open wheat field. Some reports have suggested that Confederate soldiers had forced Union troops out of the ravine into this field where they became exposed. In the summer of 2006 a variety of different archaeological techniques were employed to determine what role the wheat field played in the battle. This paper describes the archaeological techniques that were used and their effectiveness in identifying and recovering military items associated with the battle. Among them, metal detectors proved to be the most effective tool with hundreds of artifacts being recovered from the site

An Iterative Approach to Ground Penetrating Radar at the Maya Site of Pacbitun, Belize

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys provide distinct advantages for archaeological prospection in ancient, complex, urban Maya sites, particularly where dense foliage or modern debris may preclude other remote sensing or geophysical techniques. Unidirectional GPR surveys using a 500 MHz shielded antenna were performed at the Middle Preclassic Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize. The survey in 2012 identified numerous linear and circular anomalies between 1 m and 2 m deep. Based on these anomalies, one 1 m × 4 m unit and three smaller units were excavated in 2013. These test units revealed a curved plaster surface not previously found at Pacbitun. Post-excavation, GPR data were reprocessed to best match the true nature of excavated features. Additional GPR surveys oriented perpendicular to the original survey confirmed previously detected anomalies and identified new anomalies. The excavations provided information on the sediment layers in the survey area, which allowed better identification of weak radar reflections of the surfaces of a burnt, Middle Preclassic temple in the northern end of the survey area. Additional excavations of the area in 2014 and 2015 revealed it to be a large square structure, which was named El Quemado

Some Observations and New Discoveries Related to Altar 3, Pacbitun, Belize

The Pre-Columbian Maya city of Pacbitun, Belize (Fig. 1) is distinguished by the high number of stone monuments (n- 20) identified during the roughly three decades of archaeological research conducted there (Healy et al. 2004:213). Altar 3, recovered in a cache within the main pyramidal structure of the site in 1986, was one of those monuments, but, unlike most of the others from the site, it is carved and bas a short hieroglyphic text. Yet, similar to several of the others, it had been broken in the past and, its pieces scattered. Archaeological excavations in 2016 recovered another piece of the same monument, this one having been used as part of a wall foundation in antiquity

Middle Preclassic Period Maya Greenstone Triangulates : Forms, Contexts, and Geology of a Unique Mesoamerican Groundstone Artifact Type

Over the past twenty years our understanding of the Middle Preclassic (900–300 BCE) period has become much clearer through archaeological investigations at a number of sites located in the Upper Belize River Valley region of the eastern Maya Lowlands. While the picture of Middle Preclassic Maya life, including their material culture, has sharpened, there are aspects that remain uninvestigated. One artifact type, identified as greenstone triangulates, has been found at several Belize Valley sites and in a variety of contexts. Although a number of these multifaceted, polished groundstone items have been recovered, little research has focused on their distribution and function in the archaeological record. An evaluation of these items from primary contexts provides data for determining how they were used in daily social and/or ritual activities throughout the lowlands. Comparative data from other regions of Mesoamerica are also discussed. A detailed geological and petrographic pilot study of a sample of greenstone triangulates is provided, pointing conclusively to early, long-distance and complex exchange networks in exotic raw materials

Ancient Lowland Maya neighborhoods: Average Nearest Neighbor analysis and kernel density models, environments, and urban scale

Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities including neighborhoods and districts. Both today and in the past, neighborhoods form a fundamental part of cities and are defined by their spatial, architectural, and material elements. Neighborhoods existed in ancient centers of various scales, and multiple methods have been employed to identify ancient neighborhoods in archaeological contexts. However, the use of different methods for neighborhood identification within the same spatiotemporal setting results in challenges for comparisons within and between ancient societies. Here, we focus on using a single method—combining Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) and Kernel Density (KD) analyses of household groups—to identify potential neighborhoods based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is fundamental to human experience and social organization

BURIED BENEATH OUR FEET: EARLY MAYA ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE MAIN PLAZAS AT THE ANCIENT MAYA SITE OF PACBITUN, BELIZE

Over the past 75 years archaeologists have realized the benefits of investigating early Maya communities beneath plaza surfaces. Sites like Barton Ramie, Cahal Pech, Caracol, Ceibal, Colha, Cuello, Tikal, and Uaxactun have produced a wealth of information on Preclassic buildings, burials, and caches. In the Belize Valley there has been a concerted effort since the late 1980s to recover as much information as possible about the Middle Preclassic (900-300 BC) Maya by targeting plazas. This approach has been very effective at Pacbitun where we have uncovered new information on the earliest community located within the two main plazas. This paper reports on recent investigations in Plazas A and B and provides new information on the earliest houses and ceremonial constructions that may be compared with other sites in the region to identify general patterns in Middle Preclassic Maya development