Along the lower Chattahoochee River Valley between Columbus, Georgia and the Gulf of Mexico, a number of large villages with mounds developed between about A.D. 1100 and 1600. Native Americans thrived here, growing corn and other crops and harvesting abundant wildlife. In the 19th century, travelers and antiquarians explored the mounds and recovered large collections of artifacts. In the 20th century, extensive dam building flooded much of the valley and archaeologists rushed to excavate and recover what they could. Reports of the findings were sparse and today little is known of these people.
This volume summarizes the available data and creates an archaeological record to describe the history of the development of the Mississippian chiefdoms that dominated the area. Authors John Blitz, of the University of Alabama, and Karl Lorenz, of Shippensburg University, do an outstanding job of putting together the existing data, mostly second-hand data at that, and fashioning it into a readable history of the region. At the same time, they use this as a model for the development and spread of the Mississippian culture throughout the Southeast.
