Cultural Resource Management Report: Sugar Hill Timber Sale Oconee Ranger District, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, Jasper County, Georgia

The Oconee Ranger District of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests has prepared a timber sale project in Compartment 119, just west of the community of Hillsboro, in Jasper County, Georgia (Fig. 1, next page). The 595 acres of proposed cutting units have all been previously surveyed to standard, including Stands 1, 2, and 3, which were surveyed in 1992 (Fig. 3) and documented with a letter-to-file by then-Forest Archaeologist Jack Wynn. Four previously-recorded, ‘potentially eligible’ sites located within or near the boundaries of sale units were revisited for this project. Four more noted but not recorded (NBNR) sites—actually isolated finds observed in previous surveys but assigned Smithsonian numbers by the staff of the Georgia Archaeological Site File (GASF)—were also revisited and shovel-tested or metal-detected, or both. One additional NBNR proved to be an actual site; it was recorded and evaluated against National Register criteria. One historic cemetery, overlooked by previous surveys, was also recorded for the Sugar Hill project, but remains unevaluated. Please see Table 1 below.

Site visits to the four previously recorded sites provided an opportunity for condition assessments, which in some cases provided data not previously known. For this project, each of these four sites was flagged for avoidance. Also flagged for avoidance was the cemetery site, as all such cemeteries are for the Chattahoochee-Oconee’s projects. The four NBNRs that retained their ‘isolated find’ status were not flagged, since isolated finds are not considered eligible to the National Register. The one NBNR found to be an actual site was evaluated as not eligible to the National Register and no further work is necessary.

Fieldwork was conducted over five days in February and March, 2012, by the District Archaeologist and author of this report. The previously unreported survey from 1992 was conducted at the direction of FS Archaeologist Becky Bruce in November of that year. No sites were located as the result of that survey. The project has been determined no effect for historic properties according to implementing regulation 36 CFR 800.4(d)(1).