The Devil Came to Georgia: LiDAR, KOCOA, and Identifying Ephemeral Sites of Conflict

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Funded by an American Battlefield Protection Program grant, aerial LiDAR, KOCOA, and historic reconstruction guided systematic metal detector surveys to identify, evaluate, and record the evidence for an ephemeral conflict site from the American Civil War. In December of 1864, during Sherman's March to the Sea, a small running skirmish occurred between the 9th Alabama Cavalry, CSA, and leading cavalry elements of Sherman's 20th Corps through what is now Jenkins County, GA. Scant primary sources indicate a day-long skirmish, cutting through the recently abandoned site of Camp Lawton, a Confederate POW camp, terminating at the Lawton Rail Station. This conflict is the definition of an ephemeral event in an archaeological sense; in time-depth, in actors, and in its impact on the archaeological record. However, this paper demonstrates that the application of conflict archaeology methodologies can be used to identify even micro-scale conflict sites such as the skirmish at Lawton Station.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2022 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology