(MURFREESBORO) The New Year’s first meeting of The Rutherford County Archaeological Society is set for 2:00 o’clock Sunday afternoon, Feb. 25, 2024 in Maney Hall at Oaklands Mansion. It focuses on uncovering dry stacked-stone walls and unraveling the fabric of Middle Tennessee history.

The guest speaker is Archaeologist Lauren Walls. She is the principal Investigator at New South Associates, Inc. That Stone Mountain, Georgia based group is a community of professionals that study culture through research—the group also does excavations, measures, reads, and listens to information from individuals, documents, and artifacts that tell about the past.

Lauren will talk about the history learned through un-earthing dry stacked stone walls. Through today’s technology, the finds reveal even more about our past and the people who were a part of those times.

Many settlers in this area have strong roots that link with Scotland, Ireland, and England. Dry stacked-stone walls are a major part of the landscape in those countries. Their walls date back to the 1600s and serve as boundary markers as well as contain sheep and livestock.

Lauren Walls will be discussing the importance of dry-stacked stone infrastructure to the historic landscape of Middle Tennessee. She will provide examples of a number of recent Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects that have documented stone walls, fences, and bridge abutments. Lauren will talk about how these seemingly ubiquitous features are handled in a variety of different development situations, how they can be protected, and what Tennesseans can do to preserve them for the future.

Group founder Laura Bartell told WGNS, “Our meetings are open to the public and admission is free. Doors will be opened at 1:30PM with the meeting starting at 2:00 o’clock Sunday in Maney Hall at Oaklands Mansion, 900 N. Maney Avenue.