Archaeological Survey Rocky Mountain Pumped Storage Project, Floyd County, Georgia

The purpose of this project was to provide the Georgia Power Company with a cultural resource survey of the proposed Rocky Mountain Pumped Storage Facility project. Project authorization was received on December 12, 1977. Fieldwork was initiated on December 19, 1977 and was completed on January 19, 1978. The fieldwork was conducted by a two person survey team.

The project involved the survey of a total of 1,482 acres of proposed project area located in the western end of Texas Valley, in Floyd County Georgia. This area consists of an 89 hectare (221 acre) reservoir located on the top of Rocky Mountain, and three reservoirs at the base of the Mountain in Texas Valley. These consist of a lower operating pool of 178 hectares (440 acres), auxiliary pool I of 156 hectares (387 acres), and an auxiliary pool II of 48 hectares (120 acres). Additional areas of adverse impact include an administrative area of 4 hectares (10 acres), a proposed camping area of 60 hectares (150 acres), three boat launching areas of 0.8 hectares (2 acres) each; day use areas totaling 56 hectares (140 acres), and two overlooks totaling 4.8 hectares (12 acres) (see Figure I). Almost half of the area in the lower reservoir facilities had previously been surveyed by Patrick H. Garrow and Jan Eric Fortune in 1972 (Garrow and Fortune 1973). Sixteen prehistoric and historic sites were discovered in the original survey. All but two of these sites were revisited by the present survey and are described in Chapter IV of this report.

The primary research goal of this project was to gather additional settlement pattern data to gain a more complete understanding of the human utilization of the study property through time. Three distinct areas were explored during the survey, and the results of each zone were compared and contrasted through an Index of Diversity computed for each site. This technique is described and explained more fully in Chapter IV. The proposal stated that the valley floor adjacent to Heath Creek was expected to contain the greatest number of sites. This assumption was borne out by the archaeology survey: all but nine of the total of 45 sites noted on this project were found in the valley. The second survey area, the top of Rocky Mountain, could not be surveyed during the 1973 survey, due to a thick cover of planted pine that severely limited surface visibility. The clear cutting activities associated with the upper reservoir construction facility solved this problem by exposing approximately 75% of the mountain surface. A total of ten sites were located in this area, all of which had been destroyed by farming and logging practices. The third area represented in the survey was the sandstone palisades surrounding the mountain. SSI's project proposal stated concerning this area: "Archaeological materials should be very rare in this area, and present only in rock shelters and caves." No cultural materials from any time period were noted in any rock shelters, apparently due to their inaccessibility and lack of level living floors in the few existing rock shelters.