Summary Appraisal of the Archaeological Resources of the Carter's Dam Reservoir, Murray County, Georgia

Geological and ecological factors are Important in appraising the complex archaeological sites affected by the construction of Carters Dam on the Coosawattee River in Murray County, Georgia. The unusual concentration of prehistoric settlements and campsites at this point, covering a perceived time range from early-middle Archaic to Historic Cherokee, is probably a reflection of these factors in large part. The broad valley and extensive gap between the Cumberland Plateau and the main massif of the Smoky Mountains leads down from Knoxville to Chattanooga and between the Dahlonega Plateau and Lookout Mountain extension into Georgia. In terms of tribal ethnogeny the Mountain Cherokee, Middle and Lower Settlements, bestride the terminal midrib of the Blue Ridge, with the Overhill Settlements to the west. The University of Tennessee conducted an important key survey on the Hiawassee, providing an opening wedge into the, protohistoric sweep of the Cherokee upon the valley and cove peoples, Dallas and Hiawassee period cultures as defined in their report, in the Overhill country. Six seasons of exploration at the type Etowah site by A. R. Kelly and Lewis H. Larson for the Georgia Historical Commission and the University of Georgia gave abundant evidence of the impact of prehistoric cultures based on Tennessee hearth lands to the north . The strong Influence of Dallas and Hiawassee elements on the Coosawattee sites is very apparent also at the Carter's Dam area on the results obtained from the first two seasons of survey. A prior reconnaissance of the Little Egypt segment of the Coosawattee area, mounds below the present sites at the confluence of Talking Creek and the Coosawattee by Dr. W.K. Moorehead and the Andover Museum in the late 1920's gave evidence of the same synthesis of prehistoric elements although these were not recognized or described as discrete entities at the time. There are evidences, also that both pre-ceramic and early to late Woodland components were moving into the Carter's area; through the same gap and valley downward to the southwest. An important stratified unit of the Sixtoe Fields excavations in 1963.64, still being studied at this writing, exhibits mixed Mississippian and Woodland and Late Archaic materials in the uppermost 18 inches of deposits, overlying 30 inches of sterile sand, with a buried soil and occupational zone of the Old Quartz Culture, an archaic complex first described by Joseph R. Caldwell in the Smithsonian Institution river basin surveys. Alatoona and Buford basins. Recent, partly concurrent surveys and explorations in Tennessee and north Alabama, demonstrate site profiles and materials in context, assimilated to the discoveries at Carter's Dam. Variegated stemmed projectiles in the upper levels at the Archaic Unit, Sixtoe Field, bear a strong resemblance to defined Woodland and Late Archaic in Tennessee and Alabama; the Old Quartz series is dominated by round based ovates, sometimes with "incipient shoulders" very much like the Morrow Mountain complex described in Tennessee and Alabama and first described and defined by Joffre Coe in his North Carolina stratified sites.