My name is Eli Velasquez. I am currently a new intern working at the New South Archaeology office in Stone Mountain on a project called the Georgia Native Site Project for the Georgia Council of American Indian Concerns. Me and my fellow intern will be working on webpages and StoryMaps that will be added to the Council’s website. I am currently a student at Georgia State University working on my bachelors in Anthropology and this is my first internship! I wanted to work on this project because I think it would not only be a great opportunity for me, but because part of my career goal is working with native peoples around the world, especially in the Americas.
This week we did a lot of reading and preparation for later tasks, such as drafting the webpages, planning what the webpages will contain, as well as planning which sites and areas we would like to visit during the internship. We focused on Georgia’s history and geology this week especially. Utilizing the Georgia encyclopedia, articles, journals, and more, we are slowly building a broader knowledge base of Georgia as a state and using that to create a framework for the ways we would like to organize the webpages. We have decided that each of us interns will take on two quadrants of Georgia to look for sites in these areas that we can add to the webpage to encourage tourism and emphasize the existence of native existence in the state, making sure to emphasize the involvement of the state tribes.
For an introductory webpage, we are going to create a page with information on the different eras in Georgia’s human history, such as the Paleo, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and historical. We want to organize the page in a way that can help to encompass the variety of sites in Georgia and the different time periods they are from. We want the website to hold a lot of educational material not just for visitors of the site, but for educators and students who want to learn more and provide them with the information necessary to learn about Georgia history through indigenous history of the state.
We are also looking into the use of StoryMaps in our project. StoryMaps are a great way to create pages dedicated to a specific area using maps, pictures, and information to create a more easily accessible resource. I personally think StoryMaps are a great tool that is really underrated. Since we want to emphasize public outreach and closer involvement with heritage sites and education, we think StoryMaps may be a great first step in creating something that will not only be informative but be engaging and emphasizes the importance of native sites in Georgia. We want this site to be a tool for a wide range of people so that the people of Georgia can learn about the indigenous roots of the state and the constant existence of the tribes in Georgia.
Over the course of the internship, me and my fellow intern Sierra will be writing about our experience each week. We will add updates to our progress, which we are very excited to share with you all. I am super excited for this internship, and I already feel like I am learning a lot about the world of cultural resource management.