Contact: Sammy McDavid
A celebration of the state's prehistory and early history as revealed through the study of cultural artifacts is being observed Oct. 9-16.
Mississippi Archaeology Week will include a variety of programs and special events, including several in East Mississippi coordinated with the assistance of Mississippi State University's Cobb Institute of Archaeology. Some include:
--Oct. 9 and 16, Starkville, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Display of artifacts and tours of an on-going archaeological excavation at the Cork Site off Old West Point Road being conducted by MSU professor Janet Rafferty for the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
--Oct. 10, Columbus, 2 p.m. Presentation at the Plymouth Bluff Center by MSU archaeologist John O'Hear on "Tombigbee Archaeology, Past and Future."
--Oct. 11-15, MSU campus, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Various Cobb Institute museum displays. --Oct. 12, Columbus, 7 p.m. Program at the Plymouth Bluff Center by Jack D. Elliott Jr. of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History on "The Mystery of Plymouth Fort."
--Oct. 12, Macon, 7 p.m. MSU professor Paul Jacobs will be at city hall to give a program titled "From Soil to Screen: Archaeology and the Internet in Mississippi and Israel."
--Oct. 12, MSU campus, 12:30 p.m. MSU assistant professor Evan Peacock speaks in 13 Allen Hall on "Archaeology as a Tool for Managing Endangered Animal Species in the Eastern United States."
--Oct. 12, West Point, 7 p.m. MSU associate professor S. Homes Hogue speaks at the Bryan Public Library on "Gone into the Country of Souls: Bioarchaeology in Northeast Mississippi."
--Oct. 14, Louisville, 7 p.m. MSU assistant professor Evan Peacock speaks at the Chamber of Commerce Building on "Stinking Water: Archaeology at a Prehistoric Village on the Noxubee River."
--Oct. 16, Noxubee Wildlife Refuge at the border of Noxubee and Oktibbeha counties, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Rick Kanaski of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service discusses an artifact display and controlled surface collection at Bluff Lake.
In addition to the Cobb Institute and state archives and history department, Archaeology Week is being sponsored by the Mississippi Archaeological Association, Mississippi Association of Professional Archaeologists, Brockington and Associates Inc., Coastal Environments Inc., Cottonlandia Museum, Earth Search Inc., Geo-Marine Inc., Panamerican Consultants Inc., Goodwin and Associates Inc., and TRC Garrow Associates Inc.
For complete information on regional events, contact Janet Rafferty at telephone (662) 325-3826, e-mail rafferty@anthro.msstate.edu; or Evan Peacock at 325-1663, e-mail peacock@anthro.msstate.edu.