Cultural Resources Survey of the Proposed Trail System, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Forsyth County, Georgia

From February 24 through March 4, 1997 and on May 9, 1997, R.S. Webb & Associates conducted a cultural resources survey of Silver Creek L.L.C.'s proposed trail system on National Park Service land adjacent to the Chattahoochee River in Forsyth County, Georgia. The project area covers approximately 7.0 kilometers (4.3 miles) in length and is located within a 5.0-meter corridor. The proposed trail system is located in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, southeast of Cumming and southwest of Buford Dam. The undertaking is being constructed by Silver Creek L.L.C. in cooperation with the National Park Service. The survey was conducted to locate and identify cultural resources or portions of cultural resources within the proposed trail corridors and assess resource significance based on National Register of Historic Places criteria [36 CFR Part 60.4(d)J. Six sites, 10 isolated finds and five isolated rock piles were detected during the field survey of the proposed trail system. Five of the sites and nine of the isolated finds yielded prehistoric artifacts (n=34). Nearly 80 percent of the prehistoric assemblage consists of lithic debitage, followed by ceramics and firecracked rock. Sites 9F0379, 9F0382 and 9F0383 yielded lithic artifacts that could not be assigned to specific cultural periods. Site 9F0380 contained diabase artifacts that may date to the Late Archaic period. Sites 9F0380 and 9F0384 yielded plain ceramics that date to the Woodland or Mississippian periods. Site 9F0381 and one isolated find represent historic activities. Site 9F0381 appears to be the remains of an early to middle 20th century portable saw mill site. The historic isolate, a 12-gauge shotgun shell base, is assigned to the early/middle 20th century. Five rock piles found along the survey corridor were interpreted as the result of 19th and early 20th century field clearing activities. In areas adjacent to the trail corridors, three cultural resources were briefly inspected but not delineated. These include two rockshelters, one of which contains prehistoric artifacts, and two features that appear to be related to 19th century mining activity. Overall, the survey findings fit well within the prehistoric and historic use patterns observed during recent studies in the adjacent uplands at the Silver Creek development site (Gantt and Webb 1996a, 1996b, 1996c; Webb et al. 1996a, 1996b, 1996d) and in the alluvial settings of the Chattahoochee River (O'Grady and Poe 1980; Gresham 1987; Webb et al. 1996c). The current study and other recent studies add some additional explanation concerning the "lithic" versus "ceramic" site dichotomy observed by O'Grady and Poe (1980).