Sapelo Island, one of Georgia's thirteen major barrier islands, has seen an astonishingly wide array of people, cultures, and colorful characters throughout its long history of human occupation.  From the earliest American Indians to the present-day Geechee of Hog Hammock who call Sapelo their home, these groups have left their own unique traces on the face of the island.

The Sapelo Island Archaeological Research Consortium is a loosely organized group of archaeologists who are dedicated to the research and study of Sapelo Island's amazing history.  Funded partially by in-kind support from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Research Consortium members bring to Sapelo Island their own background, perspectives, and research topics.  All the archaeological work on Sapelo Island is brought together by one very important theme: students.  Both undergraduate and graduate students work on each project on Sapelo, gaining valuable field experience and, hopefully, a love for the peoples and cultures that have made Sapelo what it is today. 

Sapelo Shell Rings
People first began to live in villages on Sapelo Island during the Late Archaic Period, roughly 4,200 to 3,000 years ago.  While Archaic people left behind many smaller sites on the island, perhaps their most enduring landmarks are the Sapelo Island Shell Rings.  The Shell Rings are a group of three ring-shaped mounds of discarded shell and other materials that built up over time around American Indian dwellings.  Previous research carried out by C.B. Moore in the late 1800s and Antonio Waring and Lewis Larson in the 1950s have shown that the oldest portions of the Sapelo Island Shell Rings date to 2,500 B.C.  Research Consortium member Victor Thompson (http://www.uwf.edu/vthompson/Site/Welcome%20.html) and his colleagues Wesley Stoner and Harold Rowe have recently investigated the Native American ceramics recovered from these Shell Rings in an attempt to understand the evolution of ceramic production on Sapelo Island and determine if the Late Archaic people utilizing the Shell Rings were trading with other groups off the island. 

Sapelo Island during the Spanish Period
The arrival of the Spanish along coastal Georgia marks the first contact between Native Americans and Europeans in the region.  Consortium member John Worth (http://www.uwf.edu/jworth/) has carried out exhaustive documentary research into the contact and interaction between Spanish colonists and Missionaries with the local Guale Indians who inhabited Sapelo Island and the surrounding area.  Worth's research traces the history of the first Spanish slave raiding excursions along the Georgia coast between 1515 and 1516, the upheaval and change caused to Guale culture by the Spanish Missionary and military presence, revolts against the Spanish by the Guale Indians in 1576-1580 and 1597, and the final retreat of the Spanish Missionaries and their Guale followers to St. Augustine, Florida in 1702 and 1704 following raids by English and French pirates.

Fellow Consortium members Richard Jeffries (http://web.as.uky.edu/anthropology/people.html) and Christopher Moore have been excavating the area just north of Shell Ring II, one of the three Shell Rings on Sapelo Island.  Their excavations have yielded Spanish artifacts and Native American ceramic types dating to the 17th century, a date that coincides with the intense contact between the Guale and Spanish Missionaries.  Additionally, Jeffries, Moore, and their students have discovered a number of archaeological features such as pits and post molds.  Though there is still work to be done at this site, it seems likely that the uncovered features and artifacts represent Mission San Joseph de Sapala, the flagship of the Spanish Missionary efforts on Sapelo Island and the center of the daily interaction between the Spanish and Guale cultures.  Norma Harris of the University of West Florida Archaeology Institute (http://www.uwf.edu/anthropology/ ) is investigating Bourbon Field, a very large prehistoric site that may include components related to the earliest Spanish presence on the island.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has proven an effective technique for locating archaeological features on Sapelo Island.  Here Dan Elliott (in hat) and Nick Honerkamp watch as GPR is used at Chocolate Plantation. 

Sapelo Island during the Plantation Period
For a brief period following the Spanish retreat to St. Augustine in 1702 and 1704, Sapelo Island seems to have been relatively deserted.  By the middle 1700s, however, Sapelo became home to several historic plantations.  Two of these plantations, High Point and Chocolate, have been the focus of recent research by Nicholas Honerkamp ( http://www.utc.edu/Faculty/Nick-Honerkamp/Archaeology%20on%20Sapelo%20Island.html) of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  Exhaustive documentary research by historian Buddy Sullivan has revealed parts of the complex history of Sapelo, including the claiming of the island in the mid-1700s by a Creek woman named Mary Musgrove, the purchase and occupation of the island by a small group of Frenchmen escaping the Reign of Terror in France, and the eventual establishment of Chocolate and High Point Plantations in the late 1700s.  Honerkamp has conducted large-scale archaeological surveys at both Chocolate and High Point Plantations to better understand how the documentary history relates to information recovered archaeologically from each site.  These current surveys are part of a long-term effort by Honerkamp to study and compare the overall site structure at Chocolate and High Point.

Slave cabins on Sapelo Islands South End Plantation
Archaeology graduate students from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga have recently discovered the slave cabins associated with Thomas Spaldings South End Plantation on Sapelo Island.  Spalding, one of the wealthiest and most influential southern planters of the antebellum era, owned most of the island before the Civil War.

Locating the cabins posed a significant challenge.  Built of wood, and with foundations of wooden posts, the archaeological signature of the cabins consisted primarily of thousands of nails.  Archaeological testing revealed that there are significant features such as trash pits and stains left from structural members throughout the site area.  Particularly heavy artifact concentrations appear to be located around the windows and doors of the structures, a phenomenon known in archaeological circles as the Brunswick Pattern, named for the colonial site in North Carolina where it was first identified.  The Brunswick Pattern results from the day in-day out disposal of household refuse by tossing it out the doors and windows of a house.  Knowing where these resources are located is critical to their future management and interpretation.

Dr. Nick Honerkamp of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, who led the search for the cabins, is currently developing a research design that will involve members of the Hog Hammock community, some of whom are descended from enslaved Africans who worked South End and the other plantations on the island.  Opportunities for the general public to participate in Honerkamps Sapelo Island projects are a regular feature of the Department of Natural Resources Weekend for Wildlife, an event that benefits the departments Nongame Conservation Section.

University of Tennesee-Chattanooga graduate students excavate at one of the slave cabins as State Archaeologist Dave Crass examines their finds.

For more information on Sapelo Island, go to:
Sapelo Island Natural Estaurine Research Reserve - http://www.sapelonerr.org/

Sapelo Island Preserve and Reynolds Mansion - http://gastateparks.org/info/sapelo/ 

University of Georgia Marine Institute - http://www.uga.edu/ugami/