Cultural Resource Survey and Phase II Archaeological Testing of 9CH1191 on Alternative 4 of the Brampton Road Connector

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) plans to realign Brampton Road in Garden City, Chatham County Georgia. Alternative 4 of the Brampton Road Connector is intended to facilitate access to Gate 3 of the Garden City Terminal of the Georgia Ports Authority from the interchange at Interstate 516 and Highway 80 (GDOT PI No. 0006328, HP# 091130-001). New South Associates has completed a cultural resource survey and Phase II archaeological site testing of site 9CH1191 for the Brampton Road Connector project as a sub-consultant to CDM Smith, Atlanta. The area of potential effect (APE) consisted of 14,350 feet of expanded right-ofway (ROW), new road alignment, construction easements, railroad realignment, and the viewshed from the proposed road corridor. Portions of the APE had been previously examined during a cultural resource survey of earlier alignments of the Brampton Road Connector. The work for this survey was conducted in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended (36 CFR 800) and was intended to determine the presence of significant archaeological and historic properties in the project's APE. The cultural resource survey consisted of pedestrian coverage of the APE to identify cultural properties and to assess these properties for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Archaeological survey relied on the excavation of regular interval shovel test pits along transects that extended 100 feet outside the APE within an expanded survey corridor (ESC). The historic resource survey consisted of documenting properties within the proposed ROW and viewshed of the proposed road that are 50 years of age and older and revisiting previously recorded resources. The archaeological survey revisited 9CH1191, a Civil War artifact scatter, documented during a previous survey in 2008 and located north of Brampton Road. Additionally, the ESC of Alternative 4 intersected the Dundee Canal, a NRHP-eligible historic property identified during a cultural resource survey of Alternative 1A of the Brampton Road Connector. The shovel test pit survey identified a single isolated chert flake on a landform located between a rail spur and the Dundee Canal. A previously undiscovered 70-meter (230-ft.) ditch and parapet associated with the Savannah Campaign was also identified on the landform. The presence of the earthwork indicated that the Civil War context of 9CH1191 extended to the landform located north of the canal, and the site's NRHP status should be elevated to potentially eligible.