Collateral Resource Testing of 9Li305 for the 801 Family Housing Project at Ft. Stewart, Georgia

A cultural resource survey conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District investigated the Perkins-Hollinger-Cohen tract, which is intended as off-base housing (Section 801) for enlisted personnel and their families at Fort Stewart, Georgia (Kodack 1990). The project area (Figure 1) or 'tract', is located on wooded, nearly level private property in Hinesville, Liberty County, Georgia approximately 5.5 km south of the Fort Stewart cantonment area. The Fort Stewart Railroad spur lies immediately east of the tract, Terrells Millpond (Ways Millpond) lies approximately 0.75 km southwest, and Davis Swamp lies approximately 2 km east, across Rt. 84. This tract is approximately 22.5 ha (55 acres), all of which is intended for 200 housing units and associated roads and utilities. Using an offset 30 m transect grid for shovel testing, the survey of the tract (Kodack 1990) located a small subsurface lithic scatter (9Li305) in the northeast quadrant of the tract. Nine shovel tests were excavated at 5 m intervals north, south, east, and west of the first positive test and yielded two chert flakes. A partially excavated 3 x 3 meters square test unit recovered one chert biface, 13 chert flakes, and two historic period iron spikes. Based on this survey data Kodack (1990) recommended that the site might be eligible to the National Register of Historic Places and that site testing, to determine eligibility, would be necessary. The Directorate of Engineering and Housing at Fort Stewart contracted with Gulf Engineers and Consultants and Southeastern Archeological Services to conduct the additional archeological testing of 9Li305, in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, Executive Order 11593 (Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment), and the Archeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974. The purpose of the testing was to evaluate the site against the criteria of eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places (36 CFR 60.4). The specific goals of the testing phase were to define site limits, determine depth of cultural deposits, record stratigraphy, determine cultural affinity(ies), and address proposed hypotheses outlined in the research design (Gresham 1991:3-4). These goals were pursued by employing standard testing procedures in the field, composed of systematic shovel testing and test unit excavation, artifact typological identification and data analysis. The ultimate goal of the testing program is to integrate 9Li305 archeologically with previously recorded sites in the area, so that its archeological value or significance can be determined (in terms of its ability to contribute to our understanding of the history or prehistory of the area) and its eligibility status resolved. The following section presents contextual information for the site, e.g. present and past environments, culture history of the Georgia Coastal Plain, and documentation of previous research on Fort Stewart and in Liberty County, Georgia. The following section is a record of testing methods used in the field and analysis methods used in the lab. The next section presents the results of the testing; the material we used to determine cultural affinity and temporal placement. Tables and photographs of artifacts accompany this section. The final section discusses our interpretation of the archeological material and its implication in comparison to current archeological understanding of coastal plain and southeastern prehistory. We address the site's eligibility for the National Register or for further work in the context of our interpretations.