James Langford

The first event of National Park Partners' 17th annual Moccasin Bend Lecture Series features James Langford, President of Etowah Museum, Inc. Mr. Langford’s presentation describes his personal research journey that began in 1969 when as a high school student, he found and recorded 16th Century villages along the Coosawattee River in his home county in Northwest Georgia. Over many years, his work evolved to collaborations with several universities and to published research that provides key evidence confirming the location of the capitol core villages of Coosa – the largest and most powerful province north of Mexico encountered by Spanish expeditions of the 16th Century. Mr. Langford details how pieces of the cultural puzzle and information about these expeditions continue to unfold as archaeological investigations and archival research yield new details and clues.