Alabama and the Borderlands

This is a unique collection of essays drawn from papers presented at a major symposium held at The University of Alabama to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the state's first institution of higher learning. The subject of the volume is the early history of the present Southeastern United States, with particular attention given to the territory which eventually became the state of Alabama. Eleven distinguished scholars in the related fields of archaeology, anthropology, and history provide a synthesis of well-established fact and recent interpretation ranging from the earliest prehistoric times up to the consolidation of the region under the United States.The volume is in three parts and includes:Part I: The Prehistoric BackgroundTrends and Trajectories in American Archaeology: Some Questions about the Mississippian Period in Southeastern Prehistory, Richard A. KrauseChanging Concepts of the Prehistoric Mississippian Cultures of the Eastern United States, James B. GriffinMississippian Patterns of Subsistence and Settlement, Bruce D. SmithPart II: The Age of ExplorationEarly European Penetration of Eastern North America, John H. ParryThe Archaeology of the Hernando de Soto Expedition, Jeffrey P. BrainThe Hernando de Soto Expedition: From Chiaha to Mabila, Chester B. DePratter, Charles M. Hudson, and Marvin T. SmithFrom Exploration to Settlement: Spanish Strategies for Colonization, Charles H. FairbanksPart III: Colonization and ConflictThe Southeast in the Age of Conflict and Revolution, Wilcomb E. WashburnContinuity in the Age of Conquest: The Establishment of Spanish Sovereignty in the Sixteenth Century, Eugene LyonThe Siege of Mobile, 1780, in Maps, William S. Coker and Hazel P. CokerApproaches to the Study of the Southeastern Borderlands, Michael C. Scardaville