So where did the first settlers in North America come from? Did they arrive through the ice free corridor in the arctic or did they arrive to America from the east coast or even the South America/ the Caribbean’s? These topics are implied and further explored in Kenneth Sassaman’s book People of the Shoals. People of the Shoals reveal the story of the Stalling Culture, an American Indian civilization that resided in the Savannah River Valley near the Tennessee River almost 4,000 years ago. Kenneth Sassaman provides an intricate yet engaging perspective to the “rise and fall of the Stallings” Island culture as well as illustrate the “archaeology that brings Stalling history to life” (Sassaman 26). Sassaman tells the story of the shoals people …show more content…
To this, Sassaman relates the Mill Branch culture and its predecessor, the Paris Island culture. The Paris Island culture was distinguished by Paris Island Stemmed points as well as cooking slabs made of soapstone and bannerstones. These bannerstones provided confirmation of interaction with neighboring Early Stallings groups as well as groups farther afield. It is possible that these interactions were the catalyst for the emergence of the Mill Branch culture. The Mill Branch culture was present in the Savannah River Valley between 4,700 and 4,200B.P and was characterized by soapstone cooking slabs and bannerstones as well as some large stemmed biface called Savannah River Stemmed or, more appropriately named, the Mill Branch Point. Sassaman believed that it is the interactions and tensions between these early Stallings communities and Paris Island communities that led to the genesis of the Mill Branch culture and the eventual abandonment of some middle Savannah sites. Mill Branch culture was based on the Middle Savannah River Valley of South Carolina and Georgia. Their technique of cooking can be placed in the Savannah River Valley and limited adjacent areas were soapstone was drafted for such uses. Due to their high thermal shock resistance, soapstone offered not only an efficient yet highly durable thermal medium at that. Mill Branch culture history in the Middle Savannah was formed through interactions with their Coastal Plain neighbors, bearers of Stallings culture. Sassaman viewed that Mill Branch ancestry likely assimilated into Stallings culture via marriages, but, resistant factions of Mill Branch culture survived in the area for generations by means of their separation and reinvention in dispersed, mobile settlements of the adjoining uplands. The relationship of Mill Branch to Stallings groups is unknown