Christopher Clement of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology will give a public lecture on archaeological projects being planned for Sandy Island on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 4 p.m. in the Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts Building, room 246, on the Coastal Carolina University campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Sandy Island is a 9,000-acre freshwater island in Georgetown County located between the Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers. Historically the island was primarily devoted to rice cultivation, but much of the land was owned by plantations that were centered on the mainland. As a result, Sandy Island saw little historic disturbance of its archaeological resources, according to Clement.

"Sandy Island offers as nearly pristine a laboratory for archaeological research as can be found in South Carolina," says Clement. "The significance of the island is enhanced from an archaeological perspective because the Grand Strand area as a whole has seen few concerted efforts to understand its archaeological history or prehistory."

Clement will report on earlier excavations on the island which revealed new information about Native American populations and he will outline the forthcoming Sandy Island Research Program, a long-term, interdisciplinary archaeological project.

Clement earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Florida. He was worked extensively on archaeological projects in New England, the Caribbean and Andean South America as well as throughout the Southeastern United States.

For more information, contact Coastal's Office of Marketing Communications at 349-2015.