Archaeological and Historical Resources of the North Oconee River Valley Jackson County, Georgia

During a two-week period in the winter of 1990, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., conducted a reconnaissance level archeological survey of alternative locations for a water supply reservoir (Figure 1). The project was one facet of the State of Georgia Water Resources Management Strategy prepared by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. The program recommends the creation of new water sources in the form of regional reservoirs across the state. The Upper Oconee River Basin Service Area includes the counties of Barrow, Clarke, Jackson, Oconee and portions of Madison and Oglethorpe Counties. The reconnaissance survey examined overlapping alternatives on the North Oconee River, one alternative on Little Curry Creek and one alternative on Bear Creek; all located in Jackson County. The goal was not to locate and evaluate every archeological site in the reservoirs, but to sample the resources, and identify the most important sites. The survey report provided information for ranking the four alternatives with respect to archeological resources (Ledbetter and Braley 1990). The brief survey resulted in an accumulation of a substantial body of archeological and historical information concerning sites in Jackson County. Much of this area had also been surveyed two decades earlier for another proposed reservoir project (Midgette n.d.). Because the results of these surveys have not been published, the following paper was prepared to summarize the archeological and historical findings.