An introduction to archaeology in Alabama covering all aspects in one well organized and easily accessible volume. Alabama's Prehistoric Indians and Artifacts is the one reference anyone with an interest in Alabama archaeology should have.

This book deals with the prehistory of the region encompassed by the present state of Alabama and spans a period of some 11,000 years—from 9000 B.C. and the earliest documented appearance of human beings in the area to A.D. 1750, when the early European settlements were well established. Only within the last five decades have remains of these prehistoric peoples been scientifically investigated. This volume is the product of intensive archaeological investigations in Alabama by scores of amateur and professional researchers. It represents no end product but rather is an initial step in our ongoing study of Alabama's prehistoric past. The extent of current industrial development and highway construction within Alabama and the damming of more and more rivers and streams underscore the necessity that an unprecedented effort be made to preserve the traces of prehistoric human beings that are destroyed every day by our own progress.

This comprehensive guide is an archaeological ambassador, bridging the interests and needs of amateurs, students, and professionals and assisting in their valuable efforts to discover and preserve Alabama's archaeological resources. Alabama's diverse projectile points and other artifact types get concise and thorough treatment in this paramount book, as each example is eloquently brought to life with full scale photos, geographic distribution charts, and descriptions. While interesting to the collector, this work is grounded in archaeological theory and method. Archaeological site protection is critical and this work will help instill this value in a wider audience.

The Native American tribes of what is now the southeastern United States left intriguing relics of their ancient cultural life. Arrowheads, spear points, stone tools, and other artifacts are found in newly plowed fields, on hillsides after a fresh rain, or in washed-out creek beds. These are tangible clues to the anthropology of the Paleo-Indians, and the highly developed Mississippian peoples. This indispensable guide to identifying and understanding such finds is for conscientious amateur archeologists who make their discoveries in surface terrain. Many are eager to understand the culture that produced the artifact, what kind of people created it, how it was made, how old it is, and what its purpose was. Here is a handbook that seeks identification through the clues of cultural history. In discussing materials used, the process of manufacture, and the relationship between the artifacts and the environments, it reveals ancient discoveries to be not merely interesting trinkets but by-products from the once vital societies in areas that are now Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, the Carolinas, as well as in southeastern Texas, southern Missouri, southern Illinois, and southern Indiana. The text is documented by more than a hundred drawings in the actual size of the artifacts, as well as by a glossary of archeological terms and a helpful list of state and regional archeological societies.

Hook describes what is known of the various European intrusions into Creek (Muskhogean) culture and how these changed hte tribal life of the Alabamas and Coushattas, eventually leading them to the reservation they now share in Southeast Texas.

An insider's perspective in a conversational, yet unapologetic style on the events and conditions that shaped modern-day Alabama.

Publisher description

This book begins where the reach of archaeology and history ends," writes Charles Hudson. Grounded in careful research, his extraordinary work imaginatively brings to life the sixteenth-century world of the Coosa, a native people whose territory stretched across the Southeast, encompassing much of present-day Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. Cast as a series of conversations between Domingo de la Anunciacion, a real-life Spanish priest who traveled to the Coosa chiefdom around 1559, and the Raven, a fictional tribal elder, Conversations with the High Priest of Coosa attempts to reconstruct the worldview of the Indians of the late prehistoric Southeast. Mediating the exchange between the two men is Teresa, a character modeled on a Coosa woman captured some twenty years earlier by the Hernando de Soto expedition and taken to Mexico, where she learned Spanish and became a Christian convert. Through story and legend, the Raven teaches Anunciacion about the rituals, traditions, and culture of the Coosa. He tells of how the Coosa world came to be and recounts tales of the birds and animals--real and mythical--that share that world. From these engaging conversations emerges a fascinating glimpse inside the Coosa belief system and an enhanced understanding of the native people who inhabited the ancient South.

Daily life among the Indians of the Chattahoochee River Valley.