The Swift Creek Site, 9BI3, Macon, Georgia

The Works Program Administration (WPA), designed to provide employment for large numbers of people during a time of depression, midwifed the birth of scientific archaeology in the southeastern United States. Archaeological work sponsored by the WPA resulted in the excavation of many large, important sites and in the recognition of regional cultural sequences.

One of the areas in which WPA archaeology was conducted was Macon, Georgia. Within a few miles of one another at Macon, four large sites and several smaller ones provided a sequence of aboriginal occupation from the Early Archaic through the early historic periods. Several southeastern cultural periods and pottery types were defined from Macon; however, despite the importance of the Macon area for southeastern prehistory, very few of the sites have been described in detail. This report provides a long overdue analysis of one, the Swift Creek site, 9 Bi 3• Exploration at the Swift Creek site began in March of 1936 and continued into the winter of 1937 when final notes and recordation were made. The project was set up by WPA authorities to employ thirty to forty Negro women as an archaeological field crew under white supervisors previously trained by A. R. Kelly and J. A. Ford. The project was regarded as an experiment although a similar organization of Negro women workers with white supervisors had performed very well at the Irene site in Savannah, Georgia. At Macon, too, the results were satisfactory; the archaeological excavations were no more exacting, physically, than was the farm labor to which most of the workers were accustomed. The trenches and profiles were neat and precise.

A. R. Kelly was chief investigator of the Swift Creek project. Under him were several technical assistants: Hugh Hanna was unit supervisor; Joseph Tamplin, engineer; Joseph Coke, photographer; and James Jackson, artist-illustrator. A special laboratory to process field accessions and to analyze the collections was established in the basement of the Macon auditorium with John West acting as supervisor. Rowena W. Kelly, Dr. Kelly's wife, took an active interest in the complicated-stamped ceramics and served as a volunteer supervisor in the lab. Dr. and Mrs. Kelly prepared a preliminary draft of the results of their analysis of Swift Creek materials but a final complete manuscript did not materialize.

The present report was made possible by a grant from the National Park Service. Under this grant Dr. David J. Hally served as principal investigator; Betty A. Smith conducted the necessary laboratory analyses; and Dr. Kelly served as consultant. The last two co-operated in the writing of this report.

Despite the fact that nearly forty years have passed since the Swift Creek site was excavated, it is still an important site and one which merits description. It was a multicomponent site, but the dominant cultural manifestation was Swift Creek. Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery is associated with other wares in burial mound sites of the Santa Rosa-Swift Creek and Weeeden Island I periods in northwestern Florida and southern Georgia. At Swift Creek and Mandeville, it is associated with early occupational mounds. Regional variants have been found in north Georgia, north Alabama, and east Tennessee; and Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery has been found in Bopewellian sites in Ohio and Indiana.

Because of the perceived importance of Swift Creek, this report includes a survey of Swift Creek sites in the Southeast; thus, a general summary concerning the temporal and geographic distribution of Swift Creek will be made available in the anticipation that it will spur future detailed analysis of the Swift Creek phase in southeastern prehistory.

Dr. A. R. Kelly came to Georgia in 1933 to direct the archaeological explorations at Macon. Since that time, he has led excavations in virtually every part of the state and many of the sites on which he has worked have contained Swift Creek components. Dr. Kelly's personal recollections of some of these are recorded as Appendix D. Included also in Appendix 0 is Dr. Kelly's description of a group of sites from the l~ig bend" region of the Ocmulgee River. These Swift Creek sites were brought to the attention of the authors during the preparation of this report and Dr. Kelly traveled to Douglas, Georgia to view the site collections.