Excavation of Two Prehistoric Sites at Chattahoochee Falls: Second Avenue Revitalization Project, Columbus, Georgia

In 1996 the City of Columbus, Georgia contracted to sell a 46 acre parcel of property, covering ten city blocks, to Total System Services, Inc. This property is bounded on the north by 18th Street, on the south by 14th Street, on the east by 2nd Avenue, and on the west by the Chattahoochee River (Figure 1). The city obtained funds from the Housing and Urban Development agency and from a Community Block Grant. Since federal funds were involved, the city was required to assess the impact of construction to the archaeological resources and to mitigate adverse impacts to those resources. The City of Columbus contracted with Southern Research Historic Preservation Consultants, Inc. of Ellerslie and Columbus, Georgia to meet these requirements. Archaeological survey was initiated in September 1996 and work continued until July 1998. Southern Research archaeologists identified numerous locations that contained intact archaeological deposits and recommended more intensive investigation in six of these areas. The archaeological resources in four of these loci were primarily of a historic nature. The other two sites, 9Me1061 and 9Me1062, were predominately prehistoric. In addition, a small assemblage of prehistoric tools, dating to the very early prehistoric period, was recovered from disturbed context in Block 10. The results of the data recovery investigations of the prehistoric components are presented in this report.

The project area is located at the Fall Line where the Chattahoochee River descends 38 m in elevation as it flows across a 4-km long series of rock ledges known as Chattahoochee Falls. The bedrock ledges at the falls are comprised of Precambrian metamorphic and igneous rocks which typify the underlying bedrock of the Piedmont Province. Below the falls the river levels off and widens as it enters the Coastal Plain. Locally, several raw material types have been identified in point bars along the Chattahoochee River and its tributaries. These include quartz, quartzite, mylonite, a grainy siliceous stone resembling a fine grained quartzite, and a reddish colored fine grained rock resembling Piedmont chert. All occur as rounded pebbles and small cobbles (Gresham et al. 1985:12). Petrified wood is also available on the point bars and occasionally takes the form of a high quality red or yellow jasper, resembling coastal plain chert, but with wood grain visible. Angular chunks of vein quartz outcrop immediately to the north in the upland areas of the Piedmont. Quartzite is especially abundant in the vicinity of Pine Mountain and Oak Mountain, where it forms portions of the underlying bedrock.

Imported raw materials include soapstone, the nearest outcrop of which is roughly 50 km to the northeast in Harris county (Hopkins 1984), and Coastal Plain chert, the nearest potential source of which occurs in Paleocene deposits in the vicinity of Lumpkin, Georgia, 50 kilometers to the south. This chert takes the form of small nodules of very brittle, yellow to brown colored chert with a glossy, almost polished luster (Goad 1979:19). Due to its small size and brittle nature, it was probably only a minor source of raw material. Larger and better quality chert was available from the Jackson formation 75 kilometers to the southwest in the vicinity of Americus (Goad 1979). It may be found embedded in a limestone matrix or as residual nodules and boulders in stream beds and hilltops. Jackson sediments, frequently called Ocala Limestone and Barnwell Sand, contain chert in a multitude of colors including brown, tan, yellow, cream, white, red, pink and black. It has a dull luster and is often grainy with large fossil inclusions. Controlled heating at temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit sustained for four hours greatly improves the knapping quality of this chert, resulting in a shiny luster and color change to pink, deep red or orange.