Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey of Leone Hall Price Estate, Cobb County, Georgia

It is the contention of a few individuals that two tracts of land in northwestern Cobb County that are part of the Leone Hall Price Estate (Figure 1) contain archeologically significant Civil War earthworks and/or graves of American Indians. To address these concerns Cobb County requested that a professional archeologist examine the two tracts to determine if any such earthworks or burials exist. Thomas H. Gresham, a Georgia-based professional archeologist who is president of an archeological consulting firm that has operated in Georgia for over 20 years and who has extensive experience with Indian burials and the recurring issue of whether rock piles mark Indian burials (see Appendix A), conducted a reconnaissance survey of the two tracts on August 10, 2004. This report presents the observations and conclusions of that survey. This report concludes that no Civil War earthworks, fortifications or battlefields occur on either tract, that none of the rock piles (which occur only on the smaller tract) contain or mark Indian graves, that no known, marked or suspected graves exist on either tract, and that there is only a slight chance that Indian graves would exist on either tract.

Archeologists are often called upon to make assessments of whether graves exist on a tract of land where there is no record or visible indications of graves. Government officials desire a clear, definitive statement that "no graves exist." Most often allegations of Indian graves are based on the mistaken belief by much of the public that rock piles (defined as heaps of natural field stones less than about 10 feet in diameter and 3 feet in height) mark Indian graves. This report will present archeological evidence that none of the approximately 120 rock piles excavated in Georgia have contained Indian burials. By contrast, large rock mounds (usually more than 30 feet in diameter and more than 5 feet in height) do often contain remnants of burials or cremations. These rock mounds, of which only a dozen or two are known in Georgia, usually occur singly on hilltops. It is virtually impossible for an archeologist to "prove" that no graves exist on any tract of land, as such conclusive proof would require a complete excavation of the entire tract. While many Indian graves occur in visible and easily recognizable earthen mounds and large rock mounds, most burials were placed in living areas with no visible markers. To find such burials, if they were to still exist, would require a multi-phased archeological excavation program that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for tracts as large as the two here. It has become apparent to archeologists that government officials in Georgia desire a good faith effort to find graves and not absolute proof of the negative. State law (OCGA 36-72-4) protects "known" cemeteries and burial grounds.

The goals of our survey of these two tracts of land were to use archival and documentary sources (mainly old maps) and field inspection to determine if any Civil War features were known or visible and whether any indicators of Indians graves (earth mounds, large rock mounds or dense Indian villages) exist.