Archaeological Data Recovery Investigations at 9GE2085: An Early-Nineteenth-Century Farmstead at Reynolds Plantation

In January, 2014, Brockington and Associates completed a Phase III Data Recovery on 9GE2085, a multicomponent prehistoric and historic site with two rock piles in Greene County, Georgia. Located in Reynolds Plantation, the site was recommended eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, and is subject to a Programmatic Agreement between the United State Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office, and Reynolds Plantation. As a result of this mitigation project, Brockington determined that the prehistoric component of 9GE2085 spans from the Early Archaic to the Late Mississippian periods, though it is dominated by a Middle Archaic occupation. Brockington interprets one of two rock piles as a historic field clearing and debris pile. The second rock pile was probably constructed in the Middle Archaic, but disturbed in the Mississippian when a bundle burial was interred in the base of the pile. Site 9GE2085 contains the remains of an early nineteenth-century house site, possibly occupied by three families from 1801 to 1830. This site therefore represents one of the earliest studied Euroamerican occupations in the Oconee River drainage.