Archeological Phase I/II Survey of Proposed Improvements to Jonesboro Road, Clayton and Henry Counties, Georgia

The Georgia Department of Transportation intends to widen and improve an approximately 7.7-mi length of Jonesboro Road, from its intersection with Interstate Highway 75 in Henry County to U.S. Highway 19/41 in Clayton County (Figure 1). This is GDOT Project #STP-1583(12) and HP #070907-001. Although some portions already have four lanes, the project intends to make the entire section of road four lanes, with generally narrow median. The project corridor will generally be about 200ft wide. Most of the project involves widening the existing road along its current alignment, but some portions near the west end will be on new location to avoid important historic resources related to several Civil War battles.

Based on varied, accumulated knowledge about Civil War actions in the area, on archeological work conducted prior to this project and archeological survey conducted during the early planning stages of this project, we know the nature and location of many of the more important historic resources in the project vicinity. These resources include Civil War trenches, Civil War battle positions, Civil War era houses and camps, cemeteries, and some National Register listed or eligible properties. This information was used by project planners to develop a routing of the proposed design that will avoid the greatest number of such historic resources. During the early stages of archeological and historic research it was recognized that the Civil War battles that were fought along Jonesboro Road in 1864 should best be treated as a National Register historic district, and a proposed Battles of Lovejoy's Station Historic District was delineated. The project corridor runs through the center of this district, since most of the battles were fought along Jonesboro Road, with positions, trenches and camps on either side.

This document presents a research design for completing the Phase I/II archeological survey of the project's area of potential effect. Because the project area is so entwined with the Civil War battles that were fought along Jonesboro Road, the goals and methods of this survey differ from ordinary Phase I surveys, prompting the formulation of this research design. The main focus of this document is to outline the methodology proposed for a full coverage metal detection survey of the project's area of potential effect to adequately identify potential archeological components associated with the Civil War activities in the area. Before we describe the methods and parameters of the survey, we will present background information on the Civil War battles, previous archeological work in the area, and archeological work to date on this project.