Phase II Testing Excavations at Five Prehistoric Sites and Phase I Cultural Resources Survey of a Service Road for the Proposed Bleckley County Public Fishing Lake, Pulaski and Bleckley Counties, Georgia

During July 2000 Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. (SAS), under contract with the Wildlife Resources Division of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), conducted a Phase II site testing investigation in the Ocmulgee Wildlife Management Area (WMA). Field work was completed on July 28, 2000. The DNR is proposing to build an earthen dam across a tributary of the Omulgee River in Pulaski County, and SAS conducted a Phase I intensive cultural resources survey of the impact area in November, 1999. Most of the survey area was in Pulaski County but a small portion was also in Bleckley County. SAS recorded 21 archeological sites (20 new sites and one previously recorded site) and recommended five of the 21 archeological sites potentially eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The present Phase II site testing project revisited these five sites, all of which are in Pulaski County, to definitively determine eligibility status. In addition to the site testing, a small area was also surveyed for a proposed service road. A small portion of that survey area traversed the western edge of Bleckley County. Both the initial intensive cultural resources survey of the project area and the subsequent testing phase of investigation were conducted to be in compliance with State (Georgia Environmental Policy Act) and Federal (National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended) regulations governing the protection of cultural resources. The cultural resources survey of the proposed service road encountered two archeological sites and one artifact occurrence. One site is clearly an extension of previously recorded site 9BY6. This site was recommended ineligible for listing in the NRHP during the initial cultural resources survey and - the additional artifacts recovered during this survey do not alter this recommendation. The other site, 9PU88, consists of two lithic artifacts, one from a shovel test and one from the surface. We recommended this site ineligible for listing in the NRHP because of the low density of artifacts and lack of preservation integrity. The five sites test excavated were 9PU37, 9PU57, 9PU69, 9PU71 and 9PU72 (see Table 1). Among these five sites a total of 476 shovel tests and 18 lx2 m test units were excavated. Shovel tests, excavated on a ten or twenty-meter grid, were used to more accurately define the site boundaries within the impact zone and to produce greater spatial resolution. Three of the five sites (9PU37, 9PU57 and 9PU71) were extraordinarily large, averaging over 24,000 m' in size. Components among the five tested sites include Early Archaic through Middle Mississippian periods and, in general, the larger the site the more components that were identified (Table 2). Thus, the larger sites simply represent geographic locations that were more popular, for one reason or another, throughout prehistory. Artifacts and components were generally distributed through 50 to 90 cm of soil with little to no stratigraphic integrity. Given the archeological complexity of all of these sites and the fact that none are apparently single component sites, information yield is somewhat limited due to mixing of artifacts from a number of different components. Given this situation it is difficult to identify specific archeological problems that the data from these five sites can address with traditional archeological methods (block excavation). The current phases of survey and testing have provided a comprehensive set of basic data for the sites in the project area, with a statistically large, systematically retrieved artifact sample. We believe that the testing has shown that it is unlikely that sites will contain cultural features, and that those that might exist will contain very little in the way of preserved faunal and botanical remains. However, 9PU57, because of its unusual topographic location and a possibly intensive Mississippian (Etowah) occupation, retains the potential for yielding more information significant to the understanding of settlement and subsistence and site formation processes. We recommend additional limited archeological investigation and geomorphological assessment of site formation processes. Furthermore, because 9PU57 is located at the dam construction site and therefore will be the only site among the five that will be entirely destroyed by the proposed project, we also recommend that the site be monitored during dam construction. Therefore, because of the site's ability to produce additional significant information, we recommend 9PU57 eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.