The Tennessee Valley Authority was created in the depths of the Great Depression to bring cheap power and economic development to an especially hard hit region of the country. The Tennessee is the nation’s fifth largest river system, and TVA set out to tame it with a series of gigantic dams and reservoirs. By 1941, six dams were completed and four more were under construction. There were many archaeological sites in the way.
TVA pioneered government sponsorship of rescue archaeology using noted scholars like William S. Webb and David DeJarnette to excavate major sites. Remarkably, these early projects were completed prior to federal requirements at the initiative of the agency itself.
In TVA Archaeology, 14 contributors discuss prehistoric excavations at a number of sites and how the agency’s salvage and preservation policy evolved over its 75-year history. It is an important contribution to the archaeology of the mid-South, and to the role government can play to protecting and destroying our cultural heritage. —Mark Michel
