An Archaeological Survey of Clayton, Dekalb and Gwinnett Counties Georgia

Between September 1, 1973 and June 1, 1975, an archaeological survey was conducted in Clayton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties, Georgia by the Laboratory of Archaeology at Georgia State University under contract with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The purpose of this survey was to obtain, within the allotted time and funds, a maximum inventory of archaeological sites in the three-county area. Sufficient data was obtained to provide a permanent record of the location, surface conditions, and archaeological provenience of each site. This data was then utilized to evaluate each site as to its local, state, or national significance, from which recommendations could be made for eligibility of the site for the National Register of Historic Places. Site evaluation was based on such criteria as size, state of preservation, and uniqueness to the archaeological record, and additional care was taken to provide a representative sample of sites from each archaeological culture documented by the survey's findings and from each environmental zone defined within the survey area. A total-of 199 sites were located in the three-county area through field survey and documentary search. Clayton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties are part of a fifteen-county group that comprises the Atlanta Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (Figure 1). The three counties have participated in a recent growth, in which Metro-Atlanta has gone from a population of 800,000 in 1950 to more than 1,600,000 in 1974. The location of the survey area within this highly urbanized zone led to the development of a secondary goal, that of evaluating the loss-rate of archaeological sites in an urban setting. The main purposes of this goal were to determine how the urbanization process is affecting the area's archaeological resources, and to utilize growth projections and field observations to define areas that are most in need of intensive archaeological investigation in the immediate future. During the survey project, approximately 1500 man-hours were expended in field research, and another 800 man-hours in documentary search, photography, drafting, cataloging, and report preparation. The authors are grateful to Charles Babb, Linda Carnes, and Phillip Condrey who assisted in the fieldwork, to James Chapman who prepared the maps and graphs, to Joan Rupp who supervised the accessioning of site data in the laboratory and who assisted in assembling the report, to Peter Bimbo who piloted the airplane for the aerial survey on the Chattahoochee River, and to Ann Grieshop who assisted in compiling the data for the site forms.