Archeological Survey of the Knox Scout Reservation, Lincoln County, Georgia

The Boy Scouts of America wishes to develop about 500 ac of land that forms a large peninsula on Thurmond Lake, in Lincoln County, Georgia. About half the acreage, along the lake shore, is federal land managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, and the central portion is owned by the Boy Scouts. The proposed development will be a large camp with numerous activity areas and facilities, such as a shooting range, archery range, aquatics center, camping grounds, dining facilities, administration buildings, etc. The federally owned portion of the peninsula was archeologically surveyed in 1997 by Panamerican Consultants (Grover et al. 1999), and 18 sites were recorded. None of the Panamerican sites were recommended as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, but two of the sites are cemeteries that require avoidance and preservation. The Boy Scouts have been working with the Corps of Engineers regarding their proposed development on the federal land (in particular around the two cemeteries), and this is not a primary concern of this report. The Boy Scouts wish to use the National Guard to assist with some of the clearing, grading and construction on the land they own, and this use of federal support requires adherence to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires consideration of effects of a federally funded undertaking on significant cultural resources. The Boy Scout land contained no standing historic structures (older than 50 years), so only archeological resources were of concern. Southeastern Archeological Services was retained by the Boy Scouts to conduct a Phase I archeological survey of their ca. 240 ac in the central portion of the peninsula. Since we conducted no survey, excavation or collection on federal land, the project did not require an ARPA permit. The Boy Scouts also asked us to delineate one of the two previously recorded cemeteries, which we did with visual inspection and probing. We also visually inspected the other previously recorded cemetery to confirm its boundaries. Our survey located and recorded 28 archeological sites (including three cemeteries), about one site per 9 acres. Six of these are sites that were first recorded by Panamerican Consultants in 1997, but which extend to or into Boy Scout land. As shown in Table 1, the sites consist of 15 prehistoric lithic scatters, six nineteenth to twentieth century house sites, three nineteenth to twentieth century house sites with sparse lithic material, one gold mining prospecting pit, and three cemeteries. Two of the cemeteries, previously recorded 9LC666 and 9LC669, were found to lie entirely on federal land, but are included in this report. Most of the project area has been plowed and farmed, logged, and most recently mechanically cleared; consequently most of the sites we discovered have been badly disturbed and consist of a plowzone scatter of artifacts. This is certainly true for the prehistoric lithic scatters. Most of the nine house sites also have been badly disturbed, although chimney bases (appearing as a rock pile), are discernible on several of them.