Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1989

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Charles H. Faulkner

Committee Members

Walter E. Klippel, John B. Rehder, Gerald F. Schroedl

Abstract

The Early Woodland Kellogg Phase of north-central Georgia is known primarily from survey and excavation data collected during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Knowledge and synthesis of the Kellogg Phase was restricted to site specific and cultural historical analysis. Data analysis and interpretation were based on method and theory in vogue at that time. More recent investigations indicate that Kellogg was a much more dynamic and diverse cultural manifestation than originally interpreted.

The purpose of this study is to define subsistence and settlement patterning and refine chronological placement of the Kellogg Phase by reevaluating earlier data in light of contemporary method and theory and integrating this with more recently gathered information. The results of these analyses indicate that earlier views of Kellogg were too simplistic and limited.

The present study suggests several refinements for interpreting Kellogg subsistence, settlement, and chronology.

1) There is little evidence to support the idea that a temporal hiatus exists between the Late Archaic Savannah River Phase and the Early Woodland Kellogg Phase. Kellogg resulted either from a movement of people who absorbed or displaced the resident Archaic occupation, or by the incorporation of diffused ideas from the north by the Archaic population.

2) Kellogg subsistence and settlement cannot be defined by singular, limiting concepts such as "new acorn economy" and "residential stability". The existing data support the idea of a very diffuse economy revolving around site specific riverine and upland loci, located so as to optimize seasonal exploitation of diverse habitats and their attendant resources.

3) Regional distributions of Kellogg components can no longer be considered co-extensive with the eastern deciduous forest solely on the criteria of vegetation type. Evidence suggests that internal and external cultural and social forces were working in concert with natural environmental parameters in influencing settlement distribution.

4) Examination of relative and absolute chronologies reinforce the earlier temporal sequence for the lower Etowah River drainage and suggest temporal precedence of the Swannanoa Phase over the Watts Bar, Long Branch and Kellogg phases which temporally overlap.

5) The Kellogg Phase dates from the mid-eighth century B.C. to the mid-second century B.C., achieving optimum occupation around 450 B.C.

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