In the summer of 1965 the Heart of Georgia Planning and Development Commission gave a grant to Georgia State College to conduct a survey of its 9 member counties: Bleckly, Pulaski, Wilcox, Dodge, Laurens, Wheeler, Montgomery, Telfair and Treutlen. The purpose of the project was to identify Indian sites showing the richest promise for developing tourist attractions.
Jerry Nielsen, a senior at Georgia State College who is studying archaeology, was in the Heart of Georgia area to perform the actual field work. Nielsen spent 10 weeks locating and mapping prehistoric Indian sites - mounds, villages and burial places – in the drainage of the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers below the fall line to their confluence at the Altamaha River.
Preliminary examinations made on one location in Telfair County indicate successive occupation periods ranging from the Archaic through Mississippian Periods. Markings on much of the fragmented pottery discovered here suggest ties between local Indians and those living on the Florida Gulf Coast and on streams draining into the Atlantic Ocean.
Once the report is submitted to local groups the Commission intends to adapt the information and frame recommendations for tourism development.
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