The Sunday at the Bluff series at Plymouth Bluff Center in Columbus presents Chickasaw Nation tribal archaeologist Dr. Brad Lieb at 2 p.m. today. Lieb, who has conducted archaeological research in the Golden Triangle area for sites related to Chickasaw and European interaction, will show the half-hour documentary “First Encounter.”
Produced by the Chickasaw Nation, the film explores Hernando de Soto’s encounter with the Chickasaw people in the Tombigbee River area in December of 1540.
The Chickasaws hosted de Soto at an abandoned town somewhere on the Blackland Prairie that winter, ending in a brief but intense battle which almost brought the Spanish expedition to an end. The effects of that winter’s contact were felt long after the Spanish departed. For the first time, an interpretation of this pivotal event in history from the Chickasaw perspective has been made publicly available in the form of the documentary.
Current archaeological research on 16th-century Chickasaw settlement patterns, community organization and cultural ecology is beginning to shed light on some of the impacts, effects and adaptations the Chickasaw people lived through and ultimately prevailed in during this dynamic yet poorly understood protohistoric period.
All Sunday at the Buff programs are free to the public. Plymouth Bluff Center is located at 2200 Old West Point Road, Columbus. For more information, call 662-241-6214.
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