Final Phase II Archaeological Testing of Six Sites (9HT178, 9HT180, 9HT183, 9HT187, 9HT189, and 9HT190) at Robins Air Force Base, Houston County, Georgia

The purpose of this report is to present the results of Phase II archaeological testing URS Group, Inc. (URS) conducted at six sites (9HT178, 9HT180, 9HT183, 9HT187, 9HT189, and 9HT190) for the Environmental Management Division, 78 CEG/CEV, Robins Air Force Base (Robins AFB), Houston County, Georgia. The goals of the project were to refine knowledge about the horizontal and vertical extent of cultural deposits at the six sites, and to make National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) eligibility recommendations for each site. Background research for the project was initiated in January 2006 and field work was conducted from January 30 to February 10, 2006. Each of the sites produced low varieties and quantities of materials. Much of the recovered materials came from disturbed (e.g., plowzone) contexts indicating the sites lack clarity and integrity to their deposits, and the subplowzone deposits were predominantly non-diagnostic lithic debitage. Future work at any of the sites would be unlikely to produce adequate information for us to substantially add to our understanding of the prehistoric and historic pasts in central Georgia. Based on this information, we recommend all six sites as ineligible for inclusion on the NRHP. One thing should be noted about the project. Originally, site 9HT50 was slated for testing during this project and sites 9HT187 and 9HT190 were not included in the original Scope of Work. After consultation with 78 CEG/CEV personnel, it was determined that site 9HT50 be dropped from the roster of tested sites and sites 9HT187 and 9HT190 be added to the roster. Several factors led to these changes. First, site 9HT50 is remotely located in the floodplain of the Ocumulgee River. Due to high water levels (both standing water on the ground and soil saturation in subsurface contexts) at the time of the testing project, it was determined that fieldwork efforts would be less-than-efficient in such wet conditions. Second, sites located within the floodplain on the base are covered under an agreement soon to be formalized into a signed Programmatic Agreement (PA) between the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office and Robins AFB. This agreement relieves Robins AFB 78 CEG/CEV of needing to proactively test sites in the floodplain; testing of these sites may be done if-and-when direct impacts are planned. As such, 9HT50 was dropped from the list of sites to test. In "exchange" for the removal of 9HT50 from the testing project, sites 9HT187 and 9HT190 were added. These two sites were added for two reasons. First, they are both untested upland sites. Testing these sites would be beneficial to 78 CEG/CEV so they could more effectively manage these resources. Second, the two sites' combined areas were roughly equivalent to the area of 9HT50. Since roughly the same amounts of area were being dropped and added, no changes to the budget of the project would be needed.