Charles Herron Fairbanks (June 3, 1913 – July 17, 1984) was an

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

. He conducted archaeology at the

Ocmulgee National Monument Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park (formerly Ocmulgee National Monument) in Macon, Georgia, United States preserves traces of over ten millennia of culture from the Native Americans in the Southeastern Woodlands. Its chief remains are majo ...

Macon, Georgia Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is located southeast of Atlanta and lies near the geographic center of the state of Geo ...

where he developed rigorous, painstaking field methodology. His 1967–1969 excavations on the slave cabins at Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island, Florida—the southernmost of the Sea Islands—were the first of their kind in the United States. Undertaken to "learn more about slave life," he called his practice "Plantation Archaeology," and for more than a decade the graduate program he led at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

was the only one in the nation with a concentration in African American archaeology.

Biography

He was born on June 3, 1913, in Bainbridge, New York. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

from 1943 to 1945. He worked on the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...

archaeology projects during his college years in 1937 and 1938. He graduated in 1939. He later went on to the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

graduate school. Later he became the superintendent at

Fort Frederica National Monument Fort Frederica National Monument, on St. Simons Island, Georgia, preserves the archaeological remnants of a fort and town built by James Oglethorpe between 1736 and 1748 to protect the southern boundary of the British colony of Georgia from Spanis ...

and was eventually a professor at

University of Florida, Gainesville The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its Ga ...

. In 1983 Fairbanks received the

J. C. Harrington Award The J. C. Harrington Award was established in by the Society for Historical Archaeology and is named in honor of J. C. Harrington (1901–1998), a pioneer founder of historical archaeology in North America. The award is presented for a "life-tim ...

, presented by the Society for Historical Archaeology for his life-time contributions to archaeology centered on scholarship. Charles Herron Fairbanks died on July 17, 1984.

Publications

*''Archaeology of the Funeral Mound: Ocmulgee National Monument, George'' (1956, reprinted 2003) *''The Occurrence of Coiled Pottery in New York'' *''The Plantation Archaeology of the Southeast Coast'' *''The Florida Seminole People'' (1975) *''Florida Archaeology'' w/

Jerald Milanich Jerald T. Milanich is an American anthropologist and archaeologist, specializing in Native American culture in Florida. He is Curator Emeritus of Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida in Gainesville; A ...

(1987)

References

*http://www.mnsu.edu *http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org *Georgia Archaeology Who's Who 1913 births 1984 deaths University of Florida faculty University of Michigan alumni 20th-century American writers 20th-century American male writers Slave cabins and quarters in the United States 20th-century American archaeologists 20th-century American anthropologists United States Army personnel of World War II {{US-archaeologist-stub