Archaeological Survey and Site Testing of Proposed Improvements to State Route 72; Madison and Elbert Counties, Georgia

In October and December of 1998, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., conducted an intensive archeological survey and site testing of a 18.8 km (11. 7 mi) long corridor for the proposed widening and rerouting of a portion of State Route 72, in Madison and Elbert Counties, Georgia. The survey was conducted for the Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT), through the engineering firm of Jordan, Jones, and Goulding, Inc. For projects that it funds, the DOT requires consideration of potential effects to cultural resources in accordance with the standards of the Federal Highway Administration. Standing structures will be evaluated in a separate report. Therefore, the present study dealt only with archeological resources. Beginning at the western end of the project, existing S.R. 72 would be widened from two lanes to four lanes with a 44 ft median for a distance of about 4.7 Ian. This requires about 22 in of new right-of-way. The highway will then proceed northeasterly to bypass the towns of Comer and Carlton, on new location right-of-way. This 13.3 kin section will require 75 in of new right-of-way. The final section of the project entails widening an existing 0.8 kin section of S.R. 72 at the Madison-Elbert County line. This will require about 22 m of new right-of-way. The entire project length is 18.8 km. The survey resulted in the identification of 21 archeological sites, including a portion of one previously recorded site (9MD5) located on the west bank of the Broad River. Two other previously recorded sites could not be relocated. One of these, 9MD70, is a small lithic scatter that is probably just outside of our project corridor. The other, 9EB 11, is a poorly defined and vaguely located site on the east bank of the Broad River; it may well be located outside of our project corridor. As shown in Table 1, we recommend that only one site, 9MD115, is eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. The other 20 sites, as well as five artifact occurrences, lack research potential because of lack of integrity, feature potential, and meaningful artifact distributions. Site 9MD115 is a well defined Lamar Period house site. The site was first defined by seven positive and five negative shovel tests. Systematic shovel testing on a 10 in grid defined a site area of 60 by 90 m. The site was later tested with the excavation of additional close interval shovel tests and test units (two 1 x 1 in pits and six 2 x 2 in units). Based on the ceramic assemblage, the site dates to the Late Lamar or protohistoric period, ca. 1600 to 1650. The site appears to be similar to the several Lamar house/farmsteads excavated by Hatch (1995) further south in the Oconee River basin, except that this one is later and is located in an unusual setting, on a broad ridge top far from any source of water. Based on its similarity with previously excavated sites of the same general period, we believe that site 9MD 115 is likely to contain preserved features and yield information important to our understanding of aboriginal culture change at the contact period.