An Intensive Archaeological Survey of a Portion of the Proposed Fall Line Freeway Crawford and Peach Counties, Georgia

An intensive archeological survey was conducted by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., along a section of the proposed Fall Line Freeway in Crawford and Peach Counties. The project runs from just east of the Flint River, where construction on the widening has already begun, to just west of Fort Valley. The project consists of widening the existing two-lane State Highway 96 to a divided four-lane highway, but also includes one alternative section of new right-of-way. The project corridor is 9.6 km (6.0 mi) long. All widening portions entail about 30 m (100 Ft) of additional right-of-way, almost all of which occurs on one side of the existing highway. The new right-of-way is 61 m (200 ft) wide. Fieldwork was conducted over 8 person-days between April 28 and 29, 1994. All high probability areas (any area with < 15% slope) along the proposed right-of-way were surface inspected and shovel tested on a 30 m interval. Low probability areas (areas with > 15 % slope) were surface inspected and randomly shovel tested. Sites were tested with a 10 m or 20 m interval shovel testing pattern. Surface survey and the excavation of 156 shovel tests resulted in recording six new archeological sites and six artifact occurrences. All of the sites and occurrences are recommended ineligible to the National Register of Historic Places due to sparsity of artifacts, poor site preservation, and likelihood that the sites will provide little additional, substantial information as the result of further investigation (criteria d).