Every year the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) awards grants to organizations for projects that promote the understanding and preservation of historic and archaeological resources. This year the THC awarded funding to 36 such projects, and the MTSU Rutherford County Archaeology Research Program was one of those recipients.
So, what is RCARP going to do with the grant funds? Well, we will return to the Magnolia Valley site in summer 2016 to investigate additional anomalies detected during the 2014 geophysical survey and survey areas suspected to have evidence of ancient human occupation. Some of these anomalies are associated with the Archaic period occupations of the site (ca. 5,000 years before present), others we suspect may be associated with the late prehistoric Mississippian period. The Mississippian period occupations of what is now Rutherford County are not well researched nor understood. This THC grant-funded work will allow us to learn how and why people settled in this particular part of the county and add to our knowledge of Native Americans’ relationship with the landscape.
For updates on our progress, subscribe to this website. You’ll receive an email when we update our blog (and that is the only time we will email you, promise!). Just click on the “FOLLOW” button on the lower left side of the homepage.
Click on the “FOLLOW” button to be notified when we update our blog!
You can read more about the program and the grants awarded to MTSU here.
Click here or a list of all grants awarded this cycle.
Rutherford County Archaeology Research Program 