An Archaeological Survey of Little Sapelo Island (Little Sapelo S-9MC353 and N-9MC352

This report is a summary of the archaeological investigations performed on Little Sapelo Island, a back-barrier island (also known as marsh island or hammock) in McIntosh County, GA. Surrounded by marsh, and typically small, the cultural material found on these islands are often considered to be from one site. However, Little Sapelo Island has two sites on it, with two official site numbers: Little Sapelo N (9MC352), and Little Sapelo S (9MC353). This is due to the fact that the island is relatively large (~44.9 ha), and there is a wide sterile area between these two sites. Thus, these sites will be treated separately.

Fieldwork was undertaken in the Spring (March 16-22) and Summer (July 17-30) of 2007 by John Turck, then at the University of Georgia, and Victor Thompson, then at the University of West Florida. This project was part of Thompson’s UWF archaeological field school of 2007, and as such was designated as Sapelo Hammock Survey: 07S. This project name and number, along with provenience information, is specific to UWF, and can be found on the artifact bags and boxes. However, for analytical purposes, the UTM locations of each shovel test are considered to be the unique identifier of this material. All cultural material, shovel test forms, and field notes are stored at the Laboratory of Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA.

This research was supported, in part, by a grant in association with the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER project and the National Science Foundation Grant (NSF grant OCE- 0620959). The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Georgia, Department of Anthropology at the University of West Florida, and the Department of Anthropology at the Ohio State University provided additional support. Several individuals were instrumental in supporting our fieldwork and include David Crass, Dorset Hurley, Fred Hay, and Buddy Sullivan. Chester DePratter also provided advice to us in the field- we thank him immensely for his support of this project. We would also like to thank the undergraduate students of the 2007 University of West Florida archaeological field school. John Turck would like to thank his dissertation committee, Ervan Garrison, David Hally, Steve Kowalewski, and Victor Thompson, whose support and encouragement was greatly appreciated. Finally, the authors would like to thank Steven Pennings and Merryl Alber of the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research project for their support of our past and ongoing research.