ABSTRACT
Federal archaeology in Florida began in the spring of 1934 when Marshall T. Newman tested the Englewood Mound in west Florida. Vernon Lamme, the state archaeologist, directed a crew of 90 in the excavation of 11 sites in Hillsborough County. Matthew Stirling provided technical supervision and Preston Holder served as Straw Boss for the fieldwork. Depression-era federal archaeology in the Southeastern United States provided the region's first systematic and evidence-based interpretations. The River Basin Surveys (RBS) reintroduced federal archaeology to the Southeast. In 1947, Joseph Caldwell conducted an intensive survey of the Allatoona Reservoir area in the Etowah River basin and located 206 prehistoric sites ranging in date and content from Paleoindian to Mississippian. A. R. Kelley made Ocmulgee National Monument the focus of National Park Service (NPS) archaeology in the Southeast. As early as 1938, Ocmulgee archaeologists organized a laboratory at the site and began processing collections from other sites in Georgia.
