The Bull Creek Site 9Me1 Muscogee County, Georgia

This report is a compilation and synthesis of previous investigations at the Bull Creek site, 9Mel, located near Columbus in Muscogee County, Georgia. The Bull Creek site is the type site for the Late Mississippian period Bull Creek phase. The site was extensively excavated during the WPA period under the direction of Dr. A.R. Kelly. The WPA excavations of 1936 and 1937 encountered well preserved structural remains and an extensive cemetery area. Subsequent excavations of the site were conducted by Kelly in l950, David Chase in the 1950s, and Frank Schnell, Jr. in 1959. There have also been other minor excavations on the site. Unfortunately, none of these excavations have been adequately reported. The Bull Creek site has been severely damaged by land clearing and filling related to commercial development and most of the site has been destroyed. The area formerly containing the Bull Creek site lay within the route of the proposed City of Columbus Riverwalk Project. An intensive archeological survey of the portion of the Riverwalk route which crossed the Bull Creek site was conducted by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. in November 1993. As a result of that survey, a determination was made that only a small part of the site remained preserved. A route for the riverwalk was designed to avoid the preserved site area. The Bull Creek site and a bordering site named the Victory Drive site, 9Me5O, were recommended eligible to the National Register of Historic Places. While portions of both sites remain that can provide significant new information, the Bull Creek site was felt to have historical importance because of the extensive WPA-era excavations and its role in defining the Bull Creek phase. Because the continued lack of reporting of previous excavations at the National Register-eligible Bull Creek site constitutes an adverse impact to the site, the logical course of action to mitigate against this adverse impact was to insure that existing notes and records would be assembled into an accessible, final report. This document is the final, comprehensive report. Efforts to accomplish these tasks met with varying degrees of success. Records and collections of different investigations varied in quality and completeness. However, some information was available for each of the investigations. As a result, we have been successful in assembling a volume that details the history of past investigations. Perhaps more importantly, the volume presents the ideas and site interpretations of past investigators gleaned from field notes and unpublished manuscripts. Reporting of past investigations together with re-analysis of existing artifact collections, has allowed the relevance of the Bull Creek site to be displayed and its role in the Mississippian period of the Southeast to be addressed.