User:Ajhawkins95/sandbox

Potential Articles

I am not very familiar with Macon as a city. Although I have been a student at MGA for 2 years now, I have solely been an online student. I've decided to branch off of the links and references added to the Macon Wikipedia page as my process for deciding on an article to contribute to.

Middle Georgia Regional Airport

At first glance the Middle Georgia Regional Airport page seems to have more information than what I anticipated and lots of information about the history of the airport. The facts provided are straight forward and easy to understand. There is a fair mix between informational facts and statistics, however, a lot of the statistics provided are old facts from a few years ago. The most recent statistic I see provided is from 2017. If I were to add to this article, I would attempt to find statistics that are more up to date otherwise, I'm not sure if there is much more to talk about.

National Historical Park

I was surprised to learn that Macon is the home of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. This topic and the history surrounding the mounds is very interesting to me mainly because it is related back to the Native Americans and it was a site where they were highly acknowledged opposed to being a piece of land known for where Natives were banished. The article has lots of information and provides mainly historical facts, but there are a couple areas where more information could be added if additional facts could be found. The first would be adding more information about the archaeological museum and secondly, adding additional info about the Lamar phase people that is briefly mentioned. The article also has a couple tags stating, "citation needed". I think this article is a good one to possibly contribute to but, it may be difficult finding enough valid resources to do additional research.

Fort Benjamin Hawkins

Aside from this article catching my attention because my last name is also Hawkins, I find the fact that the city of Macon was built up from the same lands as Fort Benjamin Hawkins, very interesting. The article seems to have limited but adequate basic information. I think there are a few areas that it would be nice to see expanded upon that was mentioned in the leading section but not much more in the main body. This includes topics such as the artifacts found on the site and more info about the different tribes that utilized the fort. We have that the leading section is meant to serve as a summary or the rest of the article and discusses topics that will later be discussed in the read of the article. Just as my concern for the last article, I am not sire how much more research could be done on this topic to find enough valid resources.

Black Belt

Macon is located within the area that was previously known as the Black Belt. Based off of the fact that this topic is more well known than the other articles I've looked at, I think it may be easier to find enough resources to possibly add to the article. To begin with, I think the definitions section of the article could have been titled something different, structured differently or introduced a little better. There is something about this portion of the article that makes it seem a little out of place. I also think there is more that could be added to the geology section to discuss more about what exactly is so different about the soil in this region by maybe providing stats about soil composition or how it compares to not only other parts of the country, but other fertile lands across the world as well. The history portion seems to provide a lot of information, but I wonder if there are areas within that section that can be expanded upon also if the information can be found. There wasn't that many references used so I am curious to see how much more references could be found or what other information can be extracted from the ones already used.

Rough Draft

Lamar Period

As the Mississippian culture declined at the ceremonial center, ca. 1350 a new culture coalesced among people who lived in the swamps downstream. The Late Mississippian period (1350 - 1600 A.D.), also consisted of the Lamar Peroid, where natives built two mounds that have survived, including a unique "spiral mound." The Lamar period is comprised of four distinct phases that lasted between the years 1375 and 1670, is identified through unique ceramic design elements that was majorly implemented during the phase it is associated with. These phases includes the Duvall, Iron Horse, Dyar and Bell phases. They also had a village, which they protected by a constructed defensive palisade constructed of logs. Their rectangular homes with roofs made of thatch or sod and clay plastered walls were positioned around the mounds. This former settlement is now protected as the Lamar Mounds and Village Site.

Lamar pottery was distinctive, stamped with complex designs like the pottery of the earlier Woodland peoples. It was unlike the pottery of the Macon Plateau culture. Many archaeologists believe the Lamar culture was related to the earlier Woodland inhabitants, who, after being displaced by the newer Mississippian culture migrants, developed a hybrid culture. Late Woodland Period characteristics extended into the Mississippian Period of 800 A.D. to 1600 A.D.