Annual Report on Inspection of Archaeological Sites Being Preserved in Place by Georgia Transmission Corporation, 2010

This is the first annual report on the inspection of archeological sites being preserved in place under a site monitoring program developed by the Georgia Transmission Corporation (GTC). An initial, base‑line report produced in early 2010 reported on site inspections of about 60 sites conducted between October 2006 and December 2009 (Jones and Gresham 2010). This report covers site inspections conducted during the calendar year 2010, and future annual reports will detail the results of site inspections conducted each subsequent year. Sites being preserved in place are inspected on intervals ranging from annually to every five years, and each year additional sites are added to the monitoring list as they reach five years from the date of initial recording. The main objective of the inspections is to observe how well sites are being preserved and to report problems and solutions for those sites where preservation in place is not working.

In addition to simple inspections of sites on the monitoring list, the annual reports will describe site assessments, a term that here includes a range of activities beyond visual inspection. These assessments include archeologically re‑evaluating the significance of select sites (some early sites may not be considered significant by today's criteria), ground truthing apparent mistakes or questions with site data and evaluating the extent of damage to sites from a variety of causes, such as looting, erosion or construction/grading.

This 2010 annual report summarizes the inspection results of 18 sites, four that were discovered in 2005 and thus were subject to their first inspection and 14 that had been overlooked in the initial, base‑line report (Jones and Gresham 2010) and thus needed their first inspection. The bulk of the report presents the results of assessments of 12 sites.

In addition to the initial base‑line report and the subsequent annual reports, the site monitoring program includes the maintenance of a "Compendium of Data", in which is kept detailed information for each of the monitored sites, including field notes, maps, photographs, and current inspection reports that describe the current state of preservation and preservation issues in need of attention. Currently four copies of the compendium exist, one is maintained at Southeastern Archeological Services, one at Georgia SHPO, and two at GTC. As part of the 2010 annual report, these four Compendiums, contained in large, three‑ring binders, have been updated with additional pages added to them.