Archaeological Survey of the University of Georgia’s Campus Transit Facility, Athens-Clarke County, Georgia

The University of Georgia is considering making some improvements to the University’s Campus Transit Facility located on Riverbend Road, southeast of the main campus (Figure 1). Sometimes referred to as the bus depot, this is the home base for the University bus system, and contains large bus parking lots, employee parking lots and an administration building connected to a large maintenance garage. The facility occupies approximately 14 acres (5.7 ha), and is bounded by Riverbend Road on the west, a private housing development on Riverbend Parkway on the east and the University’s Riverbend Farms on the south (Figure 2). Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. conducted archival/background research and archaeological field survey of a ca. 20-acre portion of the adjoining Riverbend Farms in 2017, and located three archaeological sites, all related to early twentieth century houses or barns (Gresham 2017). Although no significant earth moving is immediately anticipated with the improvements to the transit facility, the University wanted to insure that no significant archaeological resources would be adversely affected by any impending projects. Southeastern Archeological Services was contracted by the University to conduct archival research and archaeological survey of the area of potential effect, which is considered to be the entire footprint of the Campus Transit Facility tract shown in Figure 2. The tract was archaeologically surveyed by SAS senior field archaeologist Ron Schoettmer on December 17, 2018, following archival research into the historic period development of the tract by the author. Schoettmer conducted the archaeological survey of the adjoining Riverbend Farms tract, and thus was well aware of the boundary between the two tracts, which is not clearly marked on the ground.