Archaeological study of approximately 321 acres of cultivated and wooded lands slated for industrial development (Columbia County Industrial Park) identified ten archaeological sites within the primary construction impact zone. Three of the sites reflect aboriginal Indian occupation of the Archaic period, and appear to be characteristic of ephemerally used campsites for the procurement, processing and/or preparation of biotic and non-biotic resources during the early prehistoric period. Five of the sites identified by the study exhibited content and contexts typical of rural Black tenant farming and dispersed settlement patterns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina. Oral and written documentation of the project tract's property and landscape history indicate that this tract was a part of much larger plantation holdings of the Griffin family until the late 1920's, and was used primarily for cotton cropping, supplemented by subsistence and livestock farming. None of the sites identified by this study were recommended as meeting criteria for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (38 CFR 60.4, 36 CFR 800).
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