Phase II Testing at the Riverwood Plantation Development Tract, Columbia County, Georgia

From November 2001 to February 2002, Brockington and Associates, Inc., conducted Phase II testing on 16 archaeological sites located on a 1,200 acre tract in Columbia County, Georgia. This tract, situated on the Savannah River, is adjacent to the Riverwood Plantation development and is the proposed site of an 18-hole golf course. This work was conducted pursuant to Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended through 1992).

These investigations stemmed from the results of a Phase I archaeological survey conducted by Southern Research (Price and Elliot 1999). Their field survey identified a total of 46 archaeological sites and 15 isolated finds of cultural material. Three of the sites had been previously recorded. One of the 46 sites was recommended eligible, and 18 were recommended potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). These recommendations were concurred with by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Historic Preservation Division (HPD) and a Programmatic Agreement was signed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the client (Canal Industries, Inc.), and the Georgia HPD. Of these 19 eligible or potentially eligible sites, three (9CB544, 9CB581, and 9CB586) are going to be avoided by developers and preserved in place. The remaining 16 sites were the focus of the present Phase II investigation (Table 1).

In brief, four of the 16 sites provided evidence of intact cultural deposits and subsurface features (Figure 1). These sites have the potential to provide information important to the prehistory and history of the region and are, therefore, recommended eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) under Criterion D (36, CFR Part 60.4 [Criteria for evaluation]). Avoidance or Phase III Data Recovery mitigation is recommended. The remaining 12 sites have fulfilled their research potential at this phase of investigation and are recommended not eligible for the NRHP. No further cultural resources work is recommended for these sites.