Addendum to the Phase I Archaeological Resources Survey of the State Route 136 Bridge Replacement Over Lookout Creek, Dade County, Georgia.

In July of 2020, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB) conducted an addendum Phase I archaeological resources survey (ARS) of a proposed Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) bridge replacement along State Route (SR) 136 over a segment of Lookout Creek in Dade County, just east of the city limits of Trenton, Georgia. The proposed project (PI No. 00015542), is a part of GDOT’s statewide bridge replacement program. The existing SR 136 bridge (Bridge ID 083-0014-0) over Lookout Creek was constructed in 1940 and reconstructed in 1988. The bridge would be replaced with a new bridge that meets current American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) specifications with regard to lane width, shoulder width, live load capacity, and crash worthy railing system.

In 2019, VHB conducted a Phase I survey for the project. The survey area for that investigation examined a designer-provided Environmental Survey Boundary (ESB) covering approximately 27.54 acres (ac) (0.40 hectares [ha]) along SR 136 (Franca and Pappas 2020). Since that time, the project footprint has expanded to include areas south of SR 136 that are beyond the 2019 survey limits and require additional survey. For the current investigation, VHB was given an ESB based on the updated design plans in lieu of a formal APE. The dimensions of the ESB were determined prior to fieldwork by the design team and were intended to encompass an area large enough to capture any potential variations in project design work. The addendum survey area is defined as the portion of the ESB beyond the 2019 survey coverage and encompasses an approximately 0.80 ac (0.32 ha) area.

Shovel testing, visual inspection, and systematic metal detecting took place along four parallel transects within the addendum survey area. During the course of the current survey, fourteen shovel tests were excavated. Three shovel tests were positive for cultural material which resulted in the identification of a new site (9DD110) located west of Lookout Creek and just south of SR 136. No subsurface metal was detected during the metal detecting portion of the survey.

Site 9DD110 is a multicomponent site consisting of a localized scatter of lithic and glass materials identified through the subsurface recovery of approximately thirteen nondiagnostic chert artifacts consisting entirely of debitage and two non-diagnostic glass shards. While the recovered data set lacks any diagnostic examples through which a more precise cultural context could be identified, the site was not fully delineated due to the survey area limits.

As the site lacks diagnostics and notable artifact concentrations and/or clustering (integrity of association), it has little potential to further our understanding of how precontact and historic peoples settled, subsisted, and functionally utilized riverine areas in northwest Georgia. Therefore, the identified portion of site 9DD110 within the survey area lacks significant data potential under Criterion D of the NRHP. As the site could not be fully delineated to the north due to the limits of the survey area, the overall NRHP eligibility of site 9DD110 should be considered unknown. The unknown portion of the site should be considered an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and protected by orange barrier fencing (OBF).