This report describes a public archaeology project conducted at a site in southeastern Georgia designated as the Jack Branch Site (9LG641). It documents the history and prehistory of human activities on an occupation peninsula that is surrounded on three sides by Jack Branch, a small intermittent stream that ultimately flows into the massive lower Altamaha River swamp. Field work was conducted on seven separate days during the cooler months of 2011 and 2012 by an all-volunteer crew. Recovered artifacts reveal that people were present as early as the late part of the Early Archaic, the Late Archaic, the Woodland, the Mississippian, and the historic Mission periods, and into the modern era, including the nineteenth through twentieth centuries agrarian activities by the Parker family and conflict during the Civil War. Evidence indicates that the site was sporadically used, perhaps as a temporary or seasonal campsite until about AD 1200, but a more intense occupation occurred during the Middle Mississippian period when it was probably the location of a small Native village site. The presence of Spanish artifacts suggests interaction with at least one of the Spanish missions of the Georgia coast and the presence of Minié balls in the assemblage speaks of conflict in December of 1864 as Union General William T. Sherman’s troops marched through Georgia during the American Civil War.
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