An Intensive Archaeological Survey of a Portion of the Proposed Fall Line Freeway, Taylor County, Georgia

An intensive archeological survey was conducted by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. along a section of the proposed Fall Line Freeway in Taylor County running east from a point about 2.4 km east of Butler, through the town of Reynolds, and ending just west of the Flint River, where construction on the widening has already begun. The project consists of widening the existing two-lane State Highway 96 to a divided four-lane highway. The project corridor is 13.4 km (8.3 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 section in Reynolds is less wide and follows State Route 96 as it turns through downtown. An historic resources survey report, prepared concurrently with this report, delineated a Reynolds Historic district that includes both residential and commercial structures. Fieldwork was conducted over 12 person-days between April 25 and 27, 1994.Additional survey in the historic district was conducted on December 27 and 28, 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 213 shovel tests resulted in recording nine new archeological sites, four previously recorded sites, and five artifact occurrences. All of the sites and occurrences are recommended ineligible to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) mostly because poor preservation and lack of integrity of the sites severely limits the research potential (criteria d) of these archeological sites.