Blue Ridge Archaeology Guild hosted Dr. Dennis Blanton on Wednesday, February 10, 2021. His talk is entitled Conquistador’s Wake: Tracking the Legacy of Hernando de Soto Through the Indigenous Southeast.
Dr. Blanton's presentation describes the objectives and findings of a decade-long project at the Glass Site in Telfair County, GA. Emphasis is given to evidence of an encounter between the Native inhabitants of the Glass Site village and an early Spanish incursion. The implications of the findings, including the controversial nature of them, are discussed.
Dr. Blanton is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at James Madison University in Virginia. He continues to pursue research in southern Georgia, an area for which he has deep affection. Most of the ongoing work still concerns late prehistoric and early “contact” period sites. Blanton formerly worked as the curator of archaeology at Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta.