The Elkton Historical Society will meet Tuesday, September 5, at 7 p.m. at Elkton City Hall. Guest speaker will be Nick Fielder.

Fielder is the State Archaeologist and Director of the Division of Archaeology in the Department of Environment and Conservation. He has been State Archaeologist since 1983 and has a staff of 14 archaeologists located across the state. Prior to his present position, Nick was the staff archaeologist for the Tennessee Historical Commission from 1976 to 1983. His areas of specialty are legal aspects of archaeology, historic cemetery studies and “trouble shooting controversial projects”.

Nick began his archaeological career in 1969 on the Tellico Dam project on the Little Tennessee River where he participated in the excavation of several Cherokee villages. He received his bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from UT in 1972 and went to the University of Idaho for his Master’s degree. Nick was on the research staff at UT from 1974 to 1976. He will retire from archaeology in December 2006 but will continue working with TDEC and TEMA in the area of emergency response planning and preparedness.

Nick grew up in Oak Ridge and was an engineer with the Boeing Airplane Co. in Seattle investigating airplane crashes before changing professions. He now lives in Nashville with his wife, a retired schoolteacher. He has one daughter and two grandchildren who also live in Nashville.

He will present information on how an archaeologist looks at cemeteries and the information they can tell us.

He will illustrate the program with slides of case studies from the local area including the case of the Civil War soldier in the cast iron coffin found in Pulaski, Tennessee.