Archaeologist Llew Kinison of New South Associates, Inc., discusses women’s activity areas based on their stone tools within the contact period at the King Site in Northwest Georgia for the Blue Ridge Archaeology Guild (BRAG) and UNG Anthropology Club on May 8, 2024.
The King archaeological site was initially discovered by the locals of Foster Bend in the late 1800’s after massive floods along the Coosa River in Floyd County, Georgia. It was subsequently investigated by archaeologists in the 1920’s and 1970’s though no formal excavations were performed at that time.
Large-scale excavations by University of Georgia archaeologist Dr. David Hally from the 1970’s through the 1990’s revealed that the King site was a well preserved fortified indigenous village of numerous buildings, many with intact floors, around an open plaza, all of which was surrounded by a palisade and defensive ditch.
The village at King was part of a large territory controlled by the Coosa people that spanned north Georgia and southern Tennessee. Both the Hernando de Soto and Tristán de Luna Spanish expeditions passed through this area and noted the villages and peoples that they encountered. The King site was likely the village recorded by the Spanish as Apica, and was inhabited from 1543-1600 AD, after which it was formally abandoned.
This presentation investigates the production and maintenance of chipped stone tools by women in their homes where they would be most visible archaeologically. The results of this study indicate that Coosa women used a variety of raw materials and reduction techniques within and between the activity areas in the three structures that were examined.
Llew Kinison currently works as an Assistant Archaeologist at New South Associates Inc. His experience includes precontact and historical archaeology in the southeast. He has a B.S. in Anthropology with a focus in Archaeology from the University of West Georgia, and an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of West Florida with a focus in precontact Archaeology.
He has over 11 years of experience as a field tech (Phases I, II, and III), lab tech, flotation tech, and research assistant. Llew has worked on several archaeological sites, including a Muskogee Creek village in Alabama, colonial forts and settlements along the Florida Gulf Coast, and the Civil War battlefield at Natural Bridge near Tallahassee Florida. His research interests involve lithic studies, gender in the past, gendered spaces, and household archaeology.