Winner of the Tennessee History Book Award (Tennessee Historical Society and Tennessee Historical Commission), 2021Was Nashville once home to a giant race of humans?No, but in 1845, you could have paid a quarter to see the remains of one who allegedly lived here before The Flood. That summer, Middle Tennessee well diggers had unearthed the skeleton of an American mastodon. Before it went on display, it was modified and augmented with wooden “bones” to make ...

Discover the deep cultural roots of Southern cuisine through archaeology.Understanding and explaining societal rules surrounding food and foodways have been the foci of anthropological studies since the early days of the discipline. Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink: Foodways Archaeology in the American Southeast, however, is the first collection devoted exclusively to southeastern foodways analyzed through archaeological perspectives. These essays...

The human desire to adorn the body is universal and timeless. While specific forms of body decoration and the motivations for them vary by region, culture, and era, all human societies have engaged in practices designed to augment and enhance people’s natural appearance. Tattooing, the process of inserting pigment into the skin to create permanent designs and patterns, is one of the most widespread forms of body art and was practiced by ancient cultures throughout the world, with tattoos a...

Archaeological case studies consider material evidence of religion and ritual in the pre-Columbian Eastern WoodlandsArchaeologists today are interpreting Native American religion and ritual in the distant past in more sophisticated ways, considering new understandings of the ways that Native Americans themselves experienced them. Shaman, Priest, Practice, Belief: Materials of Ritual and Religion in Eastern North America broadly considers Native American re...

An extraordinary journey to visit the oldest trees in the United States that beautifully reveals the connection between humans and natural history— a perfect read for nature lovers and fans of The Hidden Life of Trees.Follow award-winning author Anthony D. Fredericks's adventures across the United States to uncover the remarkable secrets and lives of ancient trees. He introduces some of the oldest trees in the country using up-to-date research, interviews ...

Covering 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, the longleaf pine ecosystem was, in its prime, one of the most extensive and biologically diverse ecosystems in North America. Today these magnificent forests have declined to a fraction of their original extent, threatening such species as the gopher tortoise, the red-cockaded woodpecker, and the Venus fly-trap. Conservationists have proclaimed longleaf restoration a major goal, but has it come too late?In Looking for Longleaf,...

A chronological summary of major stages in Southeastern United States' development, this unique textbook overviews the region's archaeology from 20,000 years ago to World War I. Early chapters review the history and development of archaeology as a discipline. The following chapters, organized in chronological order, highlight the archaeological characteristics of each featured period. The book's final chapters discuss new directions in Southeastern archaeology, including trends in teaching...

Archaeology of Louisiana provides a groundbreaking and up-to-date overview of archaeology in the Bayou State, including a thorough analysis of the cultures, communities, and people of Louisiana from the Native Americans of 13,000 years ago to the modern historical archaeology of New Orleans. With eighteen chapters and twenty-seven distinguished contributors, Archaeology of Louisiana brings together the studies of some of the most respected archaeologists currently working in the state, col...

The American South is famous for its astonishingly rich biodiversity. In this book, Georgann Eubanks takes a wondrous trek from Alabama to North Carolina to search out native plants that are endangered and wavering on the edge of erasure. Even as she reveals the intricate beauty and biology of the South’s plant life, she also shows how local development and global climate change are threatening many species, some of which have been graduated to the federal list of endangered species.

Society for Historical Archaeology James Deetz Book AwardChoice Outstanding Academic TitleThe archaeology and history of one of the most storied cities of the American SouthCharleston, South Carolina, is one of the most storied cities of the American South. Widely recognized for its historic buildings, its thriving maritime culture, and its role in the Civil War, Charleston is also consider...

The American South is generally warmer, wetter, weedier, snakier, and more insect infested and disease prone than other regions of the country. It is alluring to the scientifically and poetically minded alike. With Mockingbird Song, Jack Temple Kirby offers a personal and passionate recounting of the centuries-old human-nature relationship in the South. Exhibiting violent cycles of growth, abandonment, dereliction, resettlement, and reconfiguration, this relationship, Kirby sugges...

Renowned tattoo artist, author of New York Times bestsellers High Voltage Tattoos and The Tattoo Chronicles, and star of LA Ink, Kat Von D raises the bar with her most intimate work yet: Go Big or Go Home: Taking Risks in Life, Love, and Tattooing.Kat has always been a risk-taker in her day-to-day life, her creative work, and in love. In Go Big or Go Home, she writes candidly about her greatest desires, fears, successes and fail...