TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF PREI-ITSTORTC ARCTTilEOLOGY IN SOUTH CAROLINA David G. Anderson To appreciate what we have learned about the prehistoric occupation of South Carolina in the past quarter-century, it helps to remember how little was actually known in 1968, at the time of the founding of both the Archeological Society of South Carolina (ASSC) and the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA). The total published archaeological literature from the state dating prior to 1968 could be fit into a three-ring binder with room to spare. Short papers had appeared from time to time since the late 1930s describing Paleoindian fluted points from the state (e.g., Waddell 1965a; Waring 1961; Wauchope 1939), and a scattering of similarly abbreviated articles covering aspects of later prehistory also occurred sporadically, with high points including Eugene Waddell's (1965b) recognition of the Late Archaic Awendaw ceramic complex along the coast or James B. Griffin's (1945) description of ceramics from the Thorn's Creek site. While professional archaeological investigations had indeed occurred from time to time in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, most of this work was by investigators visiting from other states, and very little of it was published at the time. It is sobering to realize that, aside from a few scattered articles, some of the best information about South Carolina prchistory compiled prior to 1968 came from reports dating to the 1880s and 1890s, and again in the early teens and twenties of this century. These included synopses of mound exploration activity by Bureau of Ethnology archaeologists (e.g., Thomas 1894), and the lavish reports by C. B. Moore (1898a, 1898b), a weallhy amateur, describing the results of his steamboat survey and mound testing work along the coast and up the Savannah River. For about a decade toward the end of the first quarter of this century, two remarkable women-Anne King Gregory (1925) and Laura Bragg (1918, 1925)-worked at the Charleston Museum and gathered information on archaeological sites across the state. Thanks to their efforts information began to be systematically recorded on archaeological sites, and state sitc files were started. Their records, in fact, formed the nucleus for the state site files that remain in use to this day. While it seems hard to believe given the current membership level of the Council of South Carolina Professional Archaeologists (COSCAPA), which stands at almost 100 individuals, it was only a little more than 35 years ago that the first professional archaeologist, Dr. William E. Edwards, came to be employed in the state. Edwards servcd as state archaeologist for a number of years from the late 1950s to mid-1960s and, while he examined a number of sites, most of this work was never documented or reported (although his report on work at the Sewee Shell Ring is an important exception [Edwards 1965]).. About all that remains of his tenure in South Carolina is colorful folklore about his activities and personality. The first monograph to focus exclusively on South Carolina prehistory was finished in 1964, when James B. Stoltman completed his doctoral dissertation at Harvard on work done at Late Archaic shell middens along the lower Savannah River, although even this study was not formally published until a decade later, in 1974. Much of what was known or inferred about South Carolina prehistory in those far away days of the late 1960s was thus based on work done in nearby states like North Carolina, where Joffrc Coe (1964) and his students had done so much to resolve the Archaic sequence at the Hardaway, Doerschuk, and Gaston sites; or in Georgia, where Woodland and Mississippian sequences had been developed in several areas (e.g., Caldwell 1957; Wauchope 1966). Some of Coe's students from the 50s and 60s included Stanley South, Bennie Keel, and Leland Ferguson, who continue to make solid contributions to South Carolina archaeology to this day. Only in 1968 did knowledge of the important depression-era work conducted at the mouth of the Savannah became widesprcad in American archaeology, with the posthumous publication of Antonio J. Waring's writings (Williams 1968). While this early work around Savannah gave us a ccramic sequence in use to this day over the southern coastal plain, only in recent years, and thanks largely to the efforts of Chester DcPrattcr (1979, 1991), has much detail on the primary fieldwork bccn reported. While this appraisal about how little we knew about South Carolina archaeology 25 years ago may appear overly dramatic, it was nonetheless true, and accepted by professionals at the time. At the 1970 David G. Anderson, National Park Service. Inferagency Archeological Services Division. 75 Spring St., SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 14