Spanish Colonial "Contact" Studies
Since about 2005 the implications of 16th- and 17th-century encounters between indigenous groups and exploring and colonizing Spanish have become central to my work. That year I joined Fernbank Museum of Natural History and, as a complement to my curatorial concerns with the renowned St. Catherines Island archaeological collection, I initiated a search for the "lost" Catholic mission known as Santa Isabel de Utinahica. Rather than the location of the mission the search unexpectedly turned up evidence for the earlier entrada of Hernando de Soto. (*The image on this page is of early glass bead types recovered from the Glass Site.)
The location of that Soto-related evidence is called the Glass Site, located near the Ocmulgee River in south-central Georgia. It represents a circular Native American village, occupied between about AD 1450 - 1570, that probably experienced two encounters with exploring Europeans.
These publications are products of my investigation of that evidence at Glass and related sites.
Blanton, Dennis B., Rachel Hensler and Frankie Snow
2021 The case for a Late Lamar polity on the lower Ocmulgee River in Georgia. Southeastern Archaeology (March 2021).
https://doi.org/10.1080/0734578X.2021.1873063
Blanton, Dennis B.
2020 Tracking an Entrada by Comparative Analysis of Sixteenth-Century Archaeological Assemblages in the Southeast. In Contact, Colonialism, and Native Communities in the Southeastern United States, pp. 73-101, edited by Edmond A. Boudreaux III, Maureen Meyers, and Jay K. Johnson. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvx070cr.10?refreqid=excelsior%3A1fb4c84c7ee3fbffe630795a913e2a07&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Blanton, Dennis B.
2020 Conquistador’s Wake: Tracking the Legacy of Hernando de Soto in the Indigenous Southeast. University of Georgia Press, Athens. ugapress.org/book/9780820356372/conquistadors-wake/
Legg, James, Dennis B. Blanton, Charles Cobb, Stephen Smith, Brad Lieb and Tony Boudreaux
2018 An Appraisal of the Indigenous Acquisition of European Metal Objects During the Contact Era in Southeastern North America. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-018-0458-1
Blanton, Dennis B., James W. Patterson, Jeffrey B. Glover, and Frankie Snow
2013 Point of Contact: Archaeological Evaluation of a Potential De Soto Encampment in Georgia. Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta, Georgia.
Blanton, Dennis B., Jeffrey Glover, and Chet Walker
2011 Points of Contact: The Archaeological Landscape of Hernando de Soto in Georgia. Prepared for the National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.
Blanton, Dennis B. and Robert A. DeVillar (Editors)
2010 Archaeological Encounters with Georgia’s Spanish Period, 1526-1700: New Findings and Perspectives. Special Publication Number 2. Society for Georgia Archaeology, Athens. digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jgi/vol5/iss1/
Blanton, Dennis B. and Frankie Snow
2010 New Evidence of Early Spanish Activity on the Lower Ocmulgee River. In Archaeological Encounters with Georgia’s Spanish Period, 1526-1700: New Findings and Perspectives, Edited by D. B. Blanton and R. A. DeVillar, pp. 9-18. Special Publication Number 2. Society for Georgia Archaeology, Athens. digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jgi/vol5/iss1/2/
Blanton, Dennis B.
2009 In Search of Mission Santa Isabel de Utinahica: Season II Progress Report. Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta, Georgia.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2007 In Search of Mission Santa Isabel de Utinahica: Season I Progress Report. Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta, Georgia.
Links to some downloadable versions:
Blanton & Snow 2010 - Evidence of Spanish Activity, Lower Ocmulgee.pdf | |
File Size: | 160 kb |
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Blanton et al. 2013 - Points of Contact report.pdf | |
File Size: | 3774 kb |
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New Book About Glass Site Discoveries:
The University of Georgia Press has published my book, Conquistador's Wake, describing the results of excavations at the Glass Site in Telfair County, Georgia, and related archaeological sites, where powerful evidence of encounters between indigenous populations and exploring Europeans during the sixteenth century.
Information about the book and how to order it may be found here:
Information about the book and how to order it may be found here:
Since 2008 I have also pursued the Hernando de Soto story in southwestern Georgia along a section of the Chickasawhatchee wetlands. My attention is on two sites in that area, each with multiple earthen mounds, and I believe them to have been successive capitals of the native province called Capachequi by Soto. Investigation of those sites is my present priority, usually in conjunction with the JMU summer field school session (see "Teaching" section.) Findings thus far indicate the first of the capitals was established in the 13th century and that it was planned around concerns with astronomical events like the solstices. After it was abandoned, two new principal villages were established in succession and at different locations. The final episode of occupation in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century appears to have been by Native refugees from Florida missions.
Jamestown-Related Research
Prior to the projects in Georgia, I was pursuing similar questions in Virginia as part of the buildup to improve interpretation of the English colony at Jamestown. Aspects of that work are published in the following sources, among others:
Blanton, Dennis B. and Julia A. King (Editors)
2004 Indian and European Contact in Context: The Middle Atlantic Region. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2002 Island-Wide Survey and American Indians and Jamestown’s Changing Environment. In Jamestown Archaeological Assessment, National Park Service Handbook, National Park Service, Washington, DC.
Blanton, Dennis B., Veronica Deitrick, and Kara Bartels
2000 A Brief and True Report of Projectile Points from Jamestown Rediscovery as of December 1998. In The Journal of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center Vol. 1, (http://www.apva.org/resources). The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, Virginia.
Prior to the projects in Georgia, I was pursuing similar questions in Virginia as part of the buildup to improve interpretation of the English colony at Jamestown. Aspects of that work are published in the following sources, among others:
Blanton, Dennis B. and Julia A. King (Editors)
2004 Indian and European Contact in Context: The Middle Atlantic Region. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Blanton, Dennis B.
2002 Island-Wide Survey and American Indians and Jamestown’s Changing Environment. In Jamestown Archaeological Assessment, National Park Service Handbook, National Park Service, Washington, DC.
Blanton, Dennis B., Veronica Deitrick, and Kara Bartels
2000 A Brief and True Report of Projectile Points from Jamestown Rediscovery as of December 1998. In The Journal of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center Vol. 1, (http://www.apva.org/resources). The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, Virginia.