Archaeological Mitigation and Monitoring for the Replacement of Guy Wire Anchors at Structure 99 on the Villa Rica-Boatrock 230 kV Transmission Line, Douglas County, Georgia

In compliance with these procedures, in May 2014 SAS excavated l-x-1-m test units at the four existing guy wire anchors at the southern edge of large upland site 9DO 181 and at the four guy wire anchors near the center of small river levee site 9DO 182. At each, a single 30-cm thick level was excavated and screened. Moderate numbers of mostly small sherds, along with occasional lithic artifacts, were found in all eight test units. A small number of these sherds were identified as dating to the Mississippian period (Etowah and Lamar) and Woodland period (Cartersville). No features were detected. At levee site 9DO 182, where the survey shovel testing indicated cultural material only below 30 cm, artifacts were found from the near surface throughout the top 30 cm of soil. We recommend that our excavation mitigated any potential adverse effects to the sites by the removal (cutting off) of the existing guy wire anchors. Since our testing was limited to particular areas of the sites, we cannot render an overall assessment of the National Register eligibility of the two sites and thus conclude that both are still potentially eligible for listing. In September 2014, SAS returned to the two sites to visually monitor the installation (screwing in) of the new guy wire anchors. We learned that this process is more complicated than first assumed, and often requires the backing out of an anchor and re-installation with a larger helix. It is our observation that the installation of new anchors can create significant earth disturbance that results in adverse effects to sites.