Press Release
Fernbank Museum Seeks Participants for Summer Archaeology Program in South Georgia
APRIL 24, 2006—Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum of Natural History will debut a multi-year archaeology program this summer in Telfair County and is accepting applications for participation. Applicants must be adults or enrolled in high school or college, but do not need to have previous experience. A series of four sessions, each lasting one week, will take place from June 5 through June 30, 2006, near McRae, Ga.
Supported through a partnership with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, this program offers an extraordinary opportunity to gain experience in the methods of archaeology. In the process, participants will work alongside professional archaeologists in their search for new evidence of a lost Spanish mission, once known as Santa Isabel de Utinahica. Trained staff will provide instruction on how to properly excavate artifacts, as well as how finds are studied to deduce new details about unwritten history.
This program will be led by Fernbank’s Curator of Native American Archaeology, Dennis Blanton, who cares for the Museum’s priceless collection of artifacts recovered from a nearby Spanish mission settlement on St. Catherines Island. The St. Catherines Island Foundation and Edward John Noble Foundation Collection consists of more than one million objects excavated from the island during more than 30 years of archaeological work. The collection provides a valuable resource for understanding more than 5,000 years of human interaction through artifacts that include prehistoric Native American pottery and religious objects introduced by Spanish missionaries.
Archaeologists recently used magnetometers, which map out changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, and resistivity equipment, which measures the flow of electrical currents in the soil, to “see” beneath the surface of the ground and identify areas of interest. This technology was first used on St. Catherines Island and is now being combined with other methods with great anticipation in the search for the Spanish mission site of Santa Isabel. Blanton said the data from this equipment has helped him identify some exciting anomalies beneath the ground’s surface, which will guide the excavations in June.
“In speaking with residents of Telfair County, I have been encouraged by the widespread interest in learning more about the rich history of the area,” Blanton said. “This program has awakened a connection between today’s residents and the people who lived here hundreds of years ago.”
The artifacts recovered will form a new archaeological collection at Fernbank Museum, which will continue to reveal the little-known history of the area, including the story of Native American life and the expansion of Spanish mission settlements throughout the Southeast.
“Many Georgia residents aren’t familiar with the rich history the area holds and this is a very exciting opportunity to draw tangible attention to this Spanish colonial site,” Blanton said. “Santa Isabel was in operation for nearly two decades and was the most isolated of the Spanish missions to be studied so far. Through our findings, we hope to better understand the range of mission experiences.”
The field work will take place on a series of 400-year-old archaeological sites associated with a lost Spanish mission dating to the early 1600s near the historic Ocmulgee River. Each one-week session runs Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Fernbank will provide on-site transportation, water, instruction and equipment. Participants will be responsible for an enrollment fee to cover related expenses: $100 per week for high school students and $200 per week for college students and adults. Local accommodations should be arranged by the participants if not from the area.
Blanton said Fernbank is especially eager to welcome local residents to participate in the excavations, as this program is a way to serve a part of the state that is typically at a geographical disadvantage to accessing the Museum. He also added that public school teachers are eligible to receive continuing education credits by participating in the program. For more information or to register, call Mallory Costen at 404.929.6379
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