Final Report Phase III Data Recovery At The Labelle Gold Mine (Site 9CK1142) and Site 9CK1133 Prominence Point Development Cherokee County, Georgia

R.S. Webb & Associates conducted Phase III archeological data recovery excavations at two sites in the Prominence Point Development tract, Cherokee County, Georgia. This project was conducted in accordance a Phase III data recovery research design and data recovery plan approved by the Georgia State Historic Preservation Officer. Phase III data recovery excavations at these sites included archival research, mine feature mapping, preparation of a digital site map, metal detector survey, unit excavations, and machine stripping. These investigations were conducted during the period of July 8, 2002 through October 18, 2002. Excavations at the first site focused on the issues of the Prehistoric period site structure, artifact chronology, and subsistence. Diagnostic artifacts from the Early, Middle and Late Archaic and Early to Middle Woodland were recovered from the first site. The site was most intensively occupied during the Middle Archaic and Middle to Late Archaic. Activity at the site appears to have been focused on tool production and use of formal tools for resource extraction or processing that involved the use of PP/Ks and knives as prying implements. The main activities represented by the lithic assemblage of the first site are biface manufacture, tool refinement and repair, and resource extraction activities represented by a high frequency of formal tools exhibiting lateral breaks. The current study also generated data supporting Webb's assertion that a class of triangular bifaces are diagnostic of the local Morrow Mountain phase of the Middle Archaic. A small quantity of historic period artifacts were also recovered from the first site. Some of the ceramics and a stoneware tobacco pipe fragment mend with similar artifacts from the area of the house at site the second site, indicating interaction between the sites, probably during the gold mining episode. This study of the second site provides a glimpse of the geological, economic, and technical aspects of a small, late 19th-early 20' century Cherokee County gold mine. Archival research and archeological investigations at the second site indicate that it was the site of two small, unsuccessful gold mining episodes in the late 19th-early 20' centuries. The LaBelle Gold Mine operated at the site from 1887 through 1890. Around 1902, James Keyser reopened the mine until it closed for the final time two years later. Apparently the property within the project area sat idle after that time. A small quantity of prehistoric artifacts were recovered at the second site. The majority of these were on the creek terrace in the area of the Stamp Mill and Feature 58. Diagnostic prehistoric artifacts recovered from the second site indicate that the site was occupied during the Middle Archaic, the Middle to Late Archaic, and the Woodland. Based on this work, no further archeological work is warranted for both sites.