Archaeological Survey of the University of Georgia’s Brumby hall Parcel

The University of Georgia wishes to renovate the ca. 1965, nine-story Brumby dormitory building that is bounded by Baxter Street, Church Street and to the south by a former segment of Peabody Street, now a parking lot (Figure 1). Although no significant earth moving is anticipated with the project, the University wanted to ensure that no significant archeological resources would be adversely affected by the construction project. Southeastern Archeological Services was contracted by the University to conduct archival research and archaeological survey of the area of potential effect, which is considered to be the entire footprint of the project area shown in Figure 1. The project area is located near the crest of a prominent hill (Figure 2 and 3) and is thus situated on a moderately steep slope that crests about 200 yards to the northwest of Brumby Hall. The approximately 3.1-acre (1.3 ha) project area exhibits almost 40 ft (12 m) of relief. With a building footprint that is about 260 ft (80 m) on a side, we knew that there had been a great deal of grading on the lot prior to construction, and afterwards for landscaping purposes. The northwest (high) side of the lot had been cut down about 12 to 15 ft (3 to 4 m). Less drastic grading was visibly obvious in other parts of the lot, to facilitate a network of sidewalks, driveways, and utility trenches. Cursory prior research showed that several houses dating to the late nineteenth to early twentieth century occupied portions of the project area up until they were razed to make way for the dorm construction. Thus, in anticipation of encountering highly disturbed and dislocated artifacts from the various previous houses we consulted with the Georgia Archaeological Site File about how to record such re-deposited, disassociated artifacts. It was agreed that we would record them as we would any site, which is to say that a site is defined as more than two surface artifacts of a general period or more than one subsurface artifact of a general period found in association with one another. As will be presented in this report, we found three small clusters of household artifacts that we believe were derived from one or more of six houses that once stood on the project tract. These are treated as archaeological sites, with the recommendation that all are highly disturbed sites with no further research value, and thus are not eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.