Staff profile

Daniel Thornton Elliott, M.A., RPA

LAMAR Institute.
Consulting Archaeologist, Prehistory and History; GPR Specialist

How did you become an archaeologist?

I was born in Atlanta. I attended Carnegie Mellon University and the University of North Carolina, receiving a B.A. degree in Anthropology. I returned to Georgia to attend graduate school at the University of Georgia receiving an M.A. degree in Anthropology. Since 1980, I've been employed by various universities, the USDA Forest Service, and various private companies as a CRM archaeologist.

How and when did you get interested in archaeology and history?

I met my first archaeologist (Dan Morse) while playing in my front yard at the age of 4. Mr. Morse was collecting soapstone samples from a large boulder across the road from our house. That started my curiosity with soapstone, which was furthered by seeing Earl Roark's chicken watering trough, which was actually a Late Archaic soapstone bowl that Mr. Roark had found in his woods.

Family stories, Civil War portraits, and my mother's arrowhead collection from Holly Creek in Murray County fueled my interest in the past. Those seeds planted lay dormant in my mind for about 2 decades before hatching out as a career in archaeology.

What is the neatest thing you ever found?

That was a broken wine bottle in a 1750s cellar at Ebenezer, Georgia. This particular bottle was marked with the initials, "RS", and it had a pecked image of an 18th century key on it. That artifact, which was associated with Rupert Schrempff--Locksmith, unlocked the secrets of the archaeological site of Ebenezer, Georgia, whose story continues to unfold.

What do you do at Southern Research?

As a Consulting Archaeologist and Historian, I look up things, dig, and write.

What do you do when you're not working?

Archaeology and history are my favorite hobbies...I also enjoy blues and folk music. And it seems that much of my remaining time is consumed with the affairs of our new home at the Bird House in Rincon, Georgia. More appropriately, it is the Mottweiler-Bird-Rahn-James-Waterbrook-Elliott house, built in 1894 and strategically located on the Middle Ground Road north of the Dasher Creek crossing --where Rita Elliott and I live.