Archaeological Survey of the Proposed Dawson Crossing to Juno 115 kV Transmission Line, Dawson County, Georgia

In December, 2006 Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., conducted a Phase I archeological survey of a proposed 15.1 km (9.4 mi) transmission line in central Dawson County, Georgia. The Georgia Transmission Corporation is proposing to construct a 115 kV line within a corridor that is usually 23 m (75 ft) wide when it runs along a highway and 30 m (100 ft) wide when it runs cross-country. The proposed corridor along 0.63 km (0.4 mi) of State Route 53 was 60 m (200 ft) wide. Most of the project area is wooded, but there is also a moderate density of housing and other buildings along State Route 183. The goal of the survey was to locate, describe, and evaluate archeological resources within the area of potential effect for the proposed project, so that potential effects to those resources could be evaluated in accordance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The area of potential effect is defined as the proposed corridor (of varying widths) plus additional 30 m (100 ft) tangents (for guy wires) at turns in the line. Archival research had indicated that no archeological sites had been recorded in the project area and that few historic period structures would be expected. The courses of S.R. 53 and 183 have been altered (mainly straightened) a couple of times in the past 60 years. Our field survey involved surface inspection and the excavation of shovel tests in wooded areas. Twenty sites were discovered and recorded. As shown in Table 1, eleven of these sites are prehistoric lithic scatters, three are prehistoric lithic and pottery scatters, four are stills, one is a grist mill and one is a pair of historic period rock piles. We recommend that four of the sites are potentially eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. These sites are relatively well preserved and have some indicators that they might be able to yield important new information on the history or prehistory of the area. However, this research potential has not yet been firmly demonstrated. There are three options for dealing with these potentially eligible sites: 1) avoid them by redesign, 2) archeological test them to clearly determine their eligibility status, or 3) take measures to ensure that no harm comes to them during construction and maintenance of the line. The location and boundaries of these sites have been transmitted to Georgia Transmission Corporation designers and they intend to follow existing procedures (such as hand clearing, banning heavy equipment, site monitoring in the future) to prevent any adverse effects to the sites.