People of One Fire's video: Exploration of the Soque River Basin in Georgia

In 1886, Cyrus Thomas, Chief Archaeologist for the Smithsonian Institute and his foreman, John P. Rogan, journeyed by horseback up into a rugged section of the mountains in the northeastern part of the State of Georgia . . . on the trail of rumors. While probing mounds in the Nacoochee Valley, Thomas had been told by local families that there were mysterious stone and earthen ruins around the villages of Soquee and Sautee. The postmaster of Soquee agreed to show the famous archaeologist these ruins. Many were concentrated around the location of the post office . . . which had been the center of an "Indian Village" until 1818. Indeed, Thomas saw many things that he had not seen elsewhere in the United States, including a stone Mesoamerican ballcourt, agricultural terraces, oval-shaped stone enclosures, stone retaining walls, petroglyphs that belonged in Bronze Age Europe and stone veneered mounds. He reported these discoveries in an 1891 Smithsonian publication. They were soon forgotten. In 1939, archaeologist Robert Wauchope tried to find these extraordinary structures. He couldn't. In fact, he could not even find a community named Soquee, and no one told him that Sautee had moved 4 1/2 miles in the early 1920s. Using satellite imagery, topo maps and LIDAR, volunteers are now tromping out into the dense woods of the Georgia Mountains to locate these treasures from the past. After each archaeological zone is discovered, the structures are measured, photographed and video-taped. It is obvious that we are discovering the vestiges of a "lost civilization.'