And They Went down Both into the Water, Archaeological Data Recovery of the Riverfront Augusta Site (9Ri165)

Archeological data recovery excavation and analysis for the proposed Riverfront Augusta Convention Center and Office Park development was conducted by New South Associates between the months of September, 1989 and October, 1991. Previous survey investigations of the property had revealed intact archeological deposits associated with the antebellum free African-American community of Springfield, as well as remains from subsequent late nineteenth century domestic and industrial occupations. These cultural resources were recommended as eligible to the National Register of Historic Places by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and State Historic Preservation Office, and hence a data recovery study was required to mitigate the adverse impacts to these resources posed by the planned construction. Three large blocks, totaling some 4,380 square meters of exposed subsurface cultural remains, were studied using a combination of heavy machinery and hand excavation. These excavations revealed some 430 cultural features. Archeological components studied by the data recovery included prehistoric remains from the Archaic through Mississippian/proto-historic periods; a single antebellum domestic structure and associated refuse pits believed to be associated with the African-American community of Springfield; a trash-filled privy from the 1860s, ‘70s, and '80s commercial/industrial occupation of the property; late-nineteenth century deposits associated with upper status European-American occupants and their African-American servants; and the architectural and archeological remains of late nineteenth-century African-American housing associated with industrial manufacturing facilities at the site. These deposits offer a unique insight into free African-American culture, he processes of urbanization in Augusta, and the conditions of social status and social change in the nineteenth-century urban South.