Issue link: https://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/366131
10 famous explorer, to hopefully pinpoint – once and for all – the location of Mabila. Waselkov's dream team includes anthropologist Jim Knight, recently retired from the University of Alabama and considered one of the nation's top Mabila scholars, and Craig Sheldon, distinguished professor emeritus of anthropology at Auburn University Montgomery. Along for the ride on the Memorial Day outing was historian Leah Rawls Atkins, co-author of "Alabama: The History of a Deep South State" and a longtime student of Mabila. "It's tremen- dously exciting to see some of the top experts on Mabila com- ing together in hopes of finally finding this in- credibly impor- tant site," Atkins said. During the Memorial Day visit, the team found encouraging signs they hope will point to future success when the full-scale expedition kicks off in the fall. Although the site was explored in a limited way in the 1960s and 1970s, no digs have tak- en place since then. Using a hand-drawn map from the earlier excavations, the team quickly found the specific locations of the prior digs. They also found Indian pottery fragments dat- ing to at least the 18th century, when natives living near the site traded with French convoys traveling the river between Mobile and Fort Toulouse, in present-day Elmore County. Sheldon said the digs decades ago at the site yielded a wealth of material, from early archaic Indian artifacts dating to 6,000 B.C, to trading beads and pottery, to French flintlock rifles, cannonballs and coins. A key question the team hopes to answer with the new expedi- tion: whether the site, which has been active off and on for thousands of years, was in use during the time of the Spanish explorers in the 16th century. That the site visit took place on Memorial Day also seemed prophetic. After all, the team is searching for a famous battle- field where Native Ameri- cans died in a desperate fight to defend their homeland from a Spanish force intent on con- quest. Should Mabila be found, the impact for this rural section of Alabama could be significant. Finding Mabila could help attract more scholars and research grants to the area, not to mention the potential for tourism and economic development in connection with the historic site. "One can rightfully say that the lost battle site of Mabila is the predominant historical mystery of the Deep South," Knight wrote in "The Search for Mabila," a 269-page volume about the quest published by The Univer- sity of Alabama Press. The book, edited by Knight, was the product of a three-day gathering of Mabila scholars hosted by the university in 2006. Perhaps soon, with a little luck and some hard work, scholars can peel away some of the mystery that shrouds the lost village and battlefield of Mabila. Anthropologists Waselkov, Knight, Sheldon and historian Atkins study a map they hope will help them find the mysterious Mabila battle site.