Book excerpt: "Known best for their innovations in making pottery, these prehistoric foragers occupied the middle Savannah River valley of Georgia and South Carolina some 4,000 years ago. Sassaman offers several controversial theories about the Stallings people, arguing that they arose from interactions between two distinctive ethnic groups, organized themselves around clusters of related women, not men, established permanent villages like their counterparts on the coast, and abandoned the middle Savannah River valley when the social costs of traditional living became intolerable. Basing this work on 12 years of field research, he presents new findings about the Stallings way of life, including details about ritual, marriage alliances, community organization, and food economy.".