Archaeological Survey of the Proposed West Swainsboro By-pass, Emanuel County, Georgia

The Georgia Department of Transportation contracted with Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. to survey the right-of-way for a proposed new location bypass around the western side of the town of Swainsboro. The right-of-way begins on an existing portion of U.S. 1/S.R. 4 near its junction with S.R 297 just south of Swainsboro. From that point, the proposed bypass will extend west and north crossing several existing roadways and the Central of Georgia Railroad before it again joins with U.S. 1/S.R. 4 to the north of Swainsboro. The proposed bypass covers a total of 16.9 km (10.5 ml), and, except in areas where existing road will be widened, has a 61 m (200 It) right-of-way. In addition to the construction and widening of roadways, four multiple culverts or bridges will also be built over the East and West Forks of the Yam Grandy and Crooked Creek. This survey was conducted to be in compliance with section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, with the goal of locating, describing, and, to the extent possible, evaluating the significance of (in terms of eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places) all archeological sites that might be affected by the proposed undertaking. Standing historic structures were surveyed and evaluated as a separate project. A standard pedestrian survey coupled with intensive shovel testing was used to cover the project corridor from June 14 to June 18, 1993. Survey crews recorded 12 new sites and five artifact occurrences. Eleven of the sites date to the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, and three of these also have non-diagnostic prehistoric components. Almost all of these historic sites are turn of the century houses and farmsteads, mostly in poor archeological condition. The only solely prehistoric site recorded consists of a single chert flake recovered in a shovel test. Of the five artifact occurrences, one contains only prehistoric artifacts, three contain historic artifacts, and one has both prehistoric and historic artifacts. As shown in Table 1, we recommend that none of these sites be considered eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The background research conducted by this project provided no indication that any of the sites are associated with people or events important in history (criteria "a" and "b'). None of the sites have architecture or features that would qualify the sites under criterion "c", which relates to distinctive and representative design features. Finally, poor preservation and poor site integrity, coupled with sparse artifact distributions and lack of any field indicators of archeological research potential, indicates that none of the sites are likely to yield important information on the history or prehistory of the area (criterion d). Thus, in regard to archeological sites, the principal investigator recommends that the construction of the proposed West Swainsboro bypass will have no effect on historic properties (that is, sites eligible to the National Register) and that no further work need be done.