College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations
Term of Award
Spring 2026
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Social Sciences (M.A.)
Document Type and Release Option
Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Committee Chair
M. Jared Wood
Committee Member 1
Ryan K. McNutt
Committee Member 2
Daniel T. Elliott
Abstract
In Colonial America, sawmills were essential to settlement and expansion, supplying the lumber needed for homes, buildings, and trade. Yet despite their significance, early sawmills remain poorly documented and under-researched. An eighteenth-century sawmill complex in Screven County, Georgia, serves as a case study to determine how British colonial-era sawmills in the Deep South were organized and operated. This study combines archival research with archaeological investigation, employing systematic shovel testing, metal detection, and artifact and spatial analysis to reconstruct the complex’s layout, which included a dam, sawmill, tailrace, blacksmith’s shop, miller’s office, and at least two housing blocks. Spatial analysis does not reveal clear geometric planning or centralized elite housing with controlled sightlines over labor quarters, and the lack of identified enslaved housing prevents firm grouping within the panoptic model or not. Instead, the layout most strongly reflects pragmatic industrial organization influenced by environmental conditions and operational needs. By researching and documenting this eighteenth-century sawmill complex in Georgia’s coastal plain, this thesis expands archaeological understanding of early southern industry and offers new insights into industrial organization, labor, and landscape use in colonial Georgia.
Recommended Citation
Gaunt, Kaylee. 2026. What’s in a Mill? Unraveling an 18th-Century Sawmill. Master's Thesis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro.
Research Data and Supplementary Material
No
