David Hally – David Hally is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Georgia. He undertook excavations across Northwest Georgia including at the King site, a large Mississippian chiefdom; wrote statewide contexts for many regions in Georgia, and his work with Charles Hudson reconstructed the Hernando de Soto route through Georgia, tying archaeological and ethnohistorical data to identify this sixteenth-century entrada.
Mark Williams – Mark Williams is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Georgia and Former Director of the Archaeology Lab. His work at multiple mound sites around the state, as well as his work on early cultural resource management projects both identified important sites and trained countless future archaeologists. His work at the Lab transformed site file data and statewide artifact collections.
Sheila Kelly Caldwell – Sheila Caldwell undertook excavations at the Darien Bluff Spanish mission site on the Coast and was one of the first women in the state to undertake extensive excavations on her own. She excavated at the Allatoona Reservoir project, the Booger Bottom mound, one of the first Middle Woodland platform mounds identified in Georgia, Her work was one of the first to add to our understanding of Spanish mission archaeology, identifying fifteen structures and better defining Mission period pottery on the Georgia Coast.
Roy Dickens – Roy Dickens was born in Decatur and undertook excavations at the Stone Mountain Quarry site, before later becoming a professor at Georgia State, where he oversaw excavations of both the Soapstone Ridge Archaic Complex sites and the Marta sites, focusing on early Atlanta history. This work was pioneering in the field of Urban Archaeology. He also created Frontiers in the Soil, a textbook used to educate elementary school students about Georgia archaeology that is still used today.