Documentation & Evaluation of Site 9PM1979 Oconee Ranger District, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests Putnam County, Georgia

The Forest Archaeologist encountered this house site in his field inspections of the work performed by contract archaeologists for the Gooch Timber Sale. The site (Fig. 1) lies within the 92-acre stand of trees surveyed by then-graduate student Kelli Guest of the University of Georgia and reported in her master’s thesis, “Phase I Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey of [a] 92 Acre Tree Stand in the Oconee National Forest, Putnam County Georgia” (2010). Three years later, the site is located within a proposed cutting unit--the APE of a timber sale— necessitating its recording and evaluation. The site number, 9PM1979, selected by the author for this site was one assigned to the only historic site recorded by Ms. Guest in this area. In addition, the description of the single historic sherd she recovered, olive green and black glazed, “next to a large trash pile…that appeared to be Historic” (Guest, 2010:25), resembles other sherds recovered during the recent shovel testing of this house site. The mention of its location next to a historic trash pile also lends support to this supposition, because the only historic trash pile in this vicinity is the one at the southwest edge of the house site at the northeast edge of the wildlife opening.

The site’s boundaries may also incorporate at least one of the lithic scatters recorded by Ms. Guest (Figs. 4 and 22). However, because her mapped location of the historic sherd is suspect (at the southwest edge of the wildlife opening instead of the northeast edge) the other mapped site locations may be suspect as well. Lithic material recovered from shovel tests for the current project suggests this may be the case.

The current project is a planned timber sale on the Oconee Ranger District of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests of some 1,100 acres in Putnam County, Georgia. The Oconee’s timber sales generally confine all work to within the sale units themselves, therefore the APE is usually restricted to the sale units. However, the APE will not be defined here but rather in the forthcoming contract report. Because this is a one-site document and not the usual cultural resource survey report, this document will be a somewhat truncated version of\ the Forests’ usual required reporting style; that is, a description of the undertaking and definition of an APE will be left for reporting in the contract archaeologists’ survey report.