Stanley South, an archaeologist with the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at USC, has won North Carolina's highest civilian award.

South, who was born in Boone, N.C., and contributed significantly to North Carolina excavations before moving to South Carolina, received The Old North State Award from Gov. Mike Easley Oct. 7.

He received the honor in a surprise ceremony while he was in Raleigh as the keynote speaker for the newly created Joffre Lanning Coe Lecture Series.

In 1999 South also was the recipient of South Carolina's equivalent award, the Order of the Palmetto. The Old North State Award cited South "for dedication and service beyond expectation and excellence."

The Coe Lecture Series is sponsored by the Coe Foundation for Archaeology Research Inc., in collaboration with the N.C. Museum of History, the Division of State Historic Sites and Properties, and the N.C. Museum of Natural Science.

As the inaugural speaker in the series named in his honor, South also was the first recipient of the Stanley A. South Award for Excellence in Historical Archaeology established by the Coe Foundation's board of directors.

The award recognized South's "personal dedication, significant achievements, and innovative strategies that have led to the enhancement, understanding, and preservation of historic archaeological resources."

During the Coe Lecture, South spoke to more than 300 people on the early historical archaeology of North Carolina's historic sites between 1955 and 1969.

South recently returned to Columbia from Edisto Island, S.C., where he and colleague Chester DePratter surveyed a 4,000-year-old shell mound known as Spanish Mount in Edisto State Park.

The two will next return to Santa Elena, the 16th-century Spanish settlement uncovered at the Parris Island Marine base near Beaufort, to continue their earlier digs examining a waster dump near a pottery kiln they first found in 1993.

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