Then our southern group which fits into our southern Mississippi 

 chronology comes up along the coast and makes a break in the 

 vicinity of Wilmington, North Carolina, which seems to have 

 been very persistent. 



Now the significant thing that Haag did is an excavation at 

 Savannah, Georgia. I think he had about 15 feet or so depth in 

 the excavation. It was alongside of the river next to the wharf 

 where, unfortunately, 1 had spent many days sitting on the deck 

 of a freighter hoping to get out, not realizing that out there with- 

 in a few hundred yards was this beautiful site that preserves 

 practically the complete chronology stratigraphically. This has 

 resulted in a monograph which Haag will, I think, finish in the 

 reasonably near future. It is a case of a stratigraphic record 

 for all succeeding cultures and he feels that he has started pretty 

 well at the base of the series. 



I would like to add something about rates such as six inches per 

 century and so on (rise of sea level) for New England. These 

 disturb those of us from the marshes of Louisiana to some degree. 

 We have middens and in a few cases definite mounds. In two cases 

 we found effigy mounds, one deliberately designed in the shape of 

 an alligator. We found 1500 feet of it with the head and one of the 

 front legs removed. The rest of the alligator is perfect. Effigy 

 mounds are rare along the southern coast. Local subsidence 

 commonly lowers the base of a mound 10 feet or so below present 

 sea level and yet involved in this is possibly 2000 years or less. 

 It is mainly a matter of subsidence, but there is also the matter 

 of compaction of the materials beneath. It is not too easy to 

 distinguish between them but in a number of cases we have bored 

 holes down through the mounds. Generally we will find shells 

 at least two feet lower in the center than around the margin. 



For getting the floor upon which a mound was built we found that 

 just by probing out from the flanks of a mound we would find the 

 floor by hitting occasional shells. Perhaps in the first few probes 

 we hit shell practically every time. Then out perhaps a hundred 

 yards we now and then hit an occasional shell, and establish a 

 nice level such as 8 feet below sea level. But at the hole in the 

 center of the mound the base may be 10 feet below sea level. 



As we get out toward the distal ends of the old deltas of the 

 Lower Mississippi River the mounds have gone down more and 

 more feet. This is the same sort of thing that Eugene Smith 

 pointed out around Mobile Bay years ago. So to think of 6 inches 

 per century and to regard it as an always rising sea level gives 

 us a little pause. Some rising of sea level, yes; some sinking 

 of land, yes; but when you are in New England where glacial re- 

 bound is taking place and the land is going up, you see you have 



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