Sumter National Forest Cultural Resources Overview

This Cultural Resources Overview of the Sumter National Forest has been conducted to provide Sumter National Forest land managers with necessary information on the nature and distribution of cultural resources so that they can adequately plan for future budgets, priorities and field investigations. It includes both a comprehensive record of known (recorded) resources and examines the Forest Service model for predicting as yet undetected resources on the Sumter National Forest. The primary objectives of the overview are to compile in one document all previously recorded data about cultural resources in the area of the Sumter National Forest, to provide background information on cultural resources to aid in the planning of field inventories (surveys) of sites, to generate maps of cultural resource potential (that is, site predictive models) and to delineate areas and activities for future cultural resource work in the Forest. One key element of this overview is the development of a model predicting site location, which is to be both descriptive and predictive. The Sumter National Forest is comprised of three spatially distinct ranger districts. Enoree and Long Cane Ranger Districts are located in the Piedmont Province and the Andrew Pickens Ranger District is mostly within the Blue Ridge Province (Figure I.1). The Enoree and Long Cane Ranger Districts were created when the United States government bought numerous tracts of exhausted farm and timber land in the 1930s. The Andrew Pickens Ranger District was part of the Savannah River Purchase Unit of the Nantahala National Forest. Land within each ranger district is divided among land management units called compartments. Boundaries for these compartments typically follow roads, streams or ridge divides. Total combined area in South Carolina encompassed by the three ranger districts is 389,283 ha (961,529 ac). Within the proclamation boundaries of these ranger districts, the federal government owns 147,334 ha (364,058 ac).