Road construction for the widening of US 80 in Chatham County, Georgia, near the Effingham/Chatham County line, identified an area of corduroy road construction underlying the existing highway. Corduroy roads were made of logs, placed side by side to form a solid surface for traffic and transit. An archaeological team from New South Associates was called out to assist the Georgia Department of Transportation in the documentation of this construction. Corduroy is one of the oldest forms of road construction known in the US, and was also used by the Confederate and Union Armies during the Civil War. Archaeological and historical investigations failed to recover conclusive evidence of the age of this section of corduroy road, but the majority of information reviewed suggests that the corduroy was part of the 1920s construction of the road.
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