People of the Shoals: Stallings Culture of the Savannah River Valley

Kenneth E. Sassaman
Foreword by Jerald T. Milanich, Series Editor

Details: 224 pages     6 x 9
Cloth: $39.95   ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-2945-0   ISBN 10: 0-8130-2945-7   
Pubdate: 4/14/2006
Series: Native Peoples, Cultures, and Places of the Southeastern United States
Review(s): 5 available
Sample Chapter(s):
Table of Contents
Excerpt from Prologue


Awards
James Mooney Prize - 2008

Cloth:
Overview

"A complex but fascinating and highly personal view of the rise and fall of the Stallings Island culture. . . . People of the Shoals abounds in the application of a multitude of analytical and theoretical approaches to a uniquely rich array of archaeological data that the author has played a major role in collecting over the past decade. . . . Distinctive in both content and style."--James B. Stoltman, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Even for ancient hunter-gatherers, everyday life included adventure, personal relationships, and economic hardship. Interpreting and humanizing the experience of one group of pre-Columbian people, Kenneth Sassaman describes the mysterious rise and fall of the Stallings Culture and the research that brought its story to light.

Known best for their innovations in making pottery, these prehistoric foragers occupied the middle Savannah River valley of Georgia and South Carolina some 4,000 years ago. Sassaman offers several controversial theories about the Stallings people, arguing that they arose from interactions between two distinctive ethnic groups, organized themselves around clusters of related women, not men, established permanent villages like their counterparts on the coast, and abandoned the middle Savannah River valley when the social costs of traditional living became intolerable. Basing this work on 12 years of field research, he presents fascinating new findings about the Stallings way of life, including details about ritual, marriage alliances, community organization, and food economy.

Without violating the strictures of scientific practice, Sassaman tells this story in a style that engages the imagination and pushes the limits of archaeological interpretation in novel directions. Written for the general reader as well as the professional, the book relates lessons from the past to present-day issues and shows how knowledge about the ancient past is constructed within the context of modern experiences.

Kenneth E. Sassaman is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida.
 
Other KENNETH SASSAMAN Books
Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast