38BU2033 Data Recovery Final Report (2025)

Archaeological Data Recovery at Riverfront Village (38AK933): A Mississippian/Contact Period Occupation, Aiken County, South Carolina

2013

The Riverfront Village Site (38AK933) is an archaeological locality that exceeds 9.5 acres in size and is located on the second terrace of the Savannah River within the city limits of North Augusta, Aiken County, South Carolina. This report presents the findings of a multi-stage investigation initiated with Phase I Survey and Phase II Testing in 2004 and 2005, and Phase III Data Recovery excavations completed in the winter of 2005 and spring of 2006. Analysis of the more than 92,000 artifacts and the spatial information gathered from over 4500 features and other contexts, took place from 2006 through 2011. Phase III Data Recovery for 38AK493/391 (highlighting specifically the Wood Pottery component) was presented in a separate report (Marcoux et al. 2009). The information presented herein fulfills, in part, the stipulations of the Memorandum of Agreement signed in 2005. Those stipulations also entail preservation of a portion of the site for future investigations, compliance with the requirements of tribal consultation, and the development of an educational component.

Data Recovery at 38BU1971 Walnut Grove (Pettigrew) Plantation, Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton, South Carolina

2022

and Anthropology) gave guidance and advice on the classification of the prehistoric ceramics. Dale Jackson, PhD (Florida Natural Areas Inventory, Florida State University) identified the turtle remains and Sophia Perdikaris, PhD (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) assisted with identification of fish remains. Will Doar PhD (South Carolina Geological Survey) and Blake Smotherman identified many of the lithic artifacts. Zoe Klauck photographed the artifacts. Neil Rasmussen assisted with historical research.

Shaw Air Force Base Archaeological Data Recovery at Sites 38SU136/137 and 38SU141, Poinsett Electronic Combat Range, Sumter County, South Carolina United States Air Force Air Combat Range, Sumter County, South Carolina

2002

This report presents the results of archaeological data recovery of two sites, 38SU136/137 and 38SU141, in Sumter County, South Carolina. The sites are located in the Coastal Plain Province, 50 kilometers east of the Fall Line and along the eastern edge of the Wateree to Big Bay sand sheet. Situated near the northwest edge of Big Bay, one of the largest Carolina Bays in South Carolina, these sites offer important new information on the geomorphic setting, chronology, settlement strategies, site structure, and social organization of local prehistoric groups. Data recovery at sites 38SU136/137 and 38SU141 reconfirmed and elaborated on several broad themes of prehistoric settlement systems around Big Bay. First, the earliest cultural systems in the region (i.e., Paleoindian, Hardaway- Dalton, Side-Notched horizon, and Palmer I) appear to have been organized as high technology foragers, incorporating both high residential mobility and high logistical mobility. The territorial ranges of these systems would appear to have been very extensive, including both the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain. During this period the Big Bay ecotone may have been occupied during both warm and cold seasons. During the warm season the region appears to have been exploited primarily by high technology forager residences of still unknown population sizes, and during the winter logistically organized hunting parties visited the area taking advantage of seasonal deer aggregations. By the later half of the Early Archaic period (i.e., the Palmer phase), settlement in the region appears to have shifted toward more generalized forager residences with fewer residential moves. A new finding of the present data recovery is the positive identification of late Early Archaic multi-residence occupations. It is suggested that these occupations are associated with the Palmer II/III phase(s), but diagnostic projectile points were not recovered from any of these floors in spite of the large tool assemblages. These residences are primarily comprised of non-local cherts and rhyolite originating respectively in the Savannah and/or Edisto River valleys and in Fall Line/Piedmont localities north of Big Bay. At present this pattern is interpreted as evidence of long-distance residential moves in and out of the Big Bay area within a seasonal round. This would suggest that late Early Archaic settlement systems were organized across drainages and encompassed extremely large territories. Multihousehold forager residences continue to be the norm in the following Middle Holocene period. A greater emphasis on local raw materials suggests that territories may have been confined to the Wateree-Santee drainage, and possibly to the Fall-Line and upper Coastal Plain region. During the ceramic Late Archaic, seasonally dispersed populations who occupied the area only very briefly exploited the Big Bay ecotone. Based on the evidence gathered by the current project and the results of other studies conducted on the Coastal Plain, it is inferred that the Thom’s Creek occupation of the Big Bay ecotone included dispersed single households of possible nuclear family composition. Other site types may emerge from continued investigation ofthe sites ringing the bay, but at the present time, only debris representative of nuclear family short-term residences has been discovered. Low intensity, dispersed utilization of the Coastal Plain uplands appears to be a common trend in Thom’s Creek settlement systems throughout South Carolina. Traditionally, upland utilization has been interpreted as involving a fall migration of groups into the uplands from more permanent and aggregated settlements situated along the coast and major river systems. While this pattern has been historically documented in more recent ethnographic accounts, there is no firm basis (either archeologically or environmentally) for assuming this pattern in the distant prehistoric past. Another possible explanation for dispersed short-term residences in the uplands is that they are due to partially mobile populations, all of whose subsistence-settlement round is contained within the upland environment. The low frequency of re-occupation on the same exact location season after season suggests that social units may have been fairly fluid and changing during this period and that exploitation of the uplands was not rigidly structured by land tenure or other mechanisms for determining property rights. During the Middle Woodland period there appears to have been an increased utilization of the uplands, perhaps resulting in small semi-permanent residences of seasonally sedentary hamlets. Finally, during the Late Woodland and early Mississippian periods, dispersed and mobile multi-household units that established camps or seasonal settlements in places of resource abundance exploited the ecotone. This may have required a number of brief stays and abandonment of locations prior to settling into a site with the proper resource composition and balance.

Archaeological Sampling at Fort Johnson, South Carolina (38CH275 and 38CH16)

1976

Description A two-phase archeological project was carried out at Fort Johnson, South Carolina (38CH275) during January and March 1976 to evaluate the archeological resources that would be impacted by the construction of the Southeast Utilization Research Center. The survey phase of the project utilized a subsurface sampling technique based upon the random placement of test cores throughout the site. This phase of the project revealed a single component shell midden associated exclusively with Hanover Ware ceramics and the second phase of the project was performed to intensively investigate this midden. Separate activity areas were delineated during this excavation and two radiocarbon dates were obtained from oyster shell in the midden. The implications of this study are of considerable importance both from the point of view of archeological method as well as understanding prehistoric behavior patterns on the South Carolina coast.

Archeological Sampling at Fort Johnson, South Carolina (38CH275 and 38CH16)

1976

Description A two-phase archeological project was carried out at Fort Johnson, South Carolina (38CH275) during January and March 1976 to evaluate the archeological resources that would be impacted by the construction of the Southeast Utilization Research Center. The survey phase of the project utilized a subsurface sampling technique based upon the random placement of test cores throughout the site. This phase of the project revealed a single component shell midden associated exclusively with Hanover Ware ceramics and the second phase of the project was performed to intensively investigate this midden. Separate activity areas were delineated during this excavation and two radiocarbon dates were obtained from oyster shell in the midden. The implications of this study are of considerable importance both from the point of view of archeological method as well as understanding prehistoric behavior patterns on the South Carolina coast.

Twenty–Five Years of Prehistoric Archaeology in South Carolina. David G. Anderson. 1993. South Carolina Antiquities 25:14–22.

South Carolina Antiquities, 1993

To appreciate what we have learned about the prehistoric occupation of South Carolina in the past quarter-century, it helps to remember how little was actually known in 1968, at the time of the founding of both the Archeological Society of South Carolina (ASSC) and the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA). The total published archaeological literature from the state dating prior to 1968 could be fit into a three-ring binder with room to spare. Short papers had appeared from time to time since the late 1930s describing Paleoindian fluted points from the state (e.g., Waddell 1965a; Waring 1961; Wauchope 1939), and a scattering of similarly abbreviated articles covering aspects of later prehistory also occurred sporadically, with high points including Eugene Waddell's (1965b) recognition of the Late Archaic Awendaw ceramic complex along the coast or James B. Griffin's (1945) description of ceramics from the Thorn's Creek site. While professional archaeological investigations had indeed occurred from time to time in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, most of this work was by investigators visiting from other states, and very little of it was published at the time.

Archaeological Investigations at the South Wilson Site (38BU1935/1938/1972), Vol. I

The report describes Phase III archaeological work at site 38BU1935/ 1938/1972 in the South Wilson section of Palmetto Bluff, Town of Bluffton, Beaufort County, South Carolina. The site is located on the bank of the May River in southern Beaufort County. Excavations in 2004 and 2005 focused on three prehistoric sites identified in 2004 by Brockington & Associates, Inc. Two of the sites were described as potentially eligible and one site was described as ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Archaeological work by Integrated Archaeological Services, Inc., and Palmetto Bluff, LLC, revealed that the three sites should be combined into a single site with Late Archaic and Woodland components. Although site 38BU1935/1938/1972 lacked the stratigraphy to elucidate definitive temporal changes in settlements or subsistence, excavations revealed details of how prehistoric communities utilized faunal resources and organized work spaces.

Archaeological Survey of the Seaside Farms Tract, Charleston County, South Carolina

1993

This research examined the history and archaeological resources of a 400 acre tract situated on the marsh edge about two miles northeast of Mount Pleasant in Charleston County, South Carolina. Historically it represents parts of several plantations formed in the mid-eighteenth century and operated into the early twentieth century. Prior to that this portion of Charleston County was used by a variety of Woodland phase Native American groups. From a management perspective 15 previously unknown archaeological sites were identified by the research and three recorded sites were revisited. All 18 sites were fully recorded and evaluated. The survey work at these 18 sites is supplemented with testing at five, offering preliminary artifact analyses. As a result of this work five archaeological sites (38CH1466, 38CH1471, 38CH1473, 38CH1474, and 38CH1477) are recommended as eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. One site, 38CH1475 is recommended as potentially elig...

Paleoseismic indicators near Bluffton, South Carolina: An appraisal of their tectonic implications

Radiocarbon dating of paleoliquefaction features near Bluffton in Beaufort County, South Carolina, indicates a likelihood of four prehistoric seismic events that occurred at 500 ±180, 1180 ±220, 2355 ±365, and 3355 ±485 yr B.P. Among these, the 500 ±180 and 2355 ±365 yr B.P. events appear to have originated near Bluffton, outside of the currently active Charleston seismic source zone. Association of these two events with a local source near Bluffton conflicts with the idea of periodic activation of a single seismic source near Charleston. The felt shocks of1826,1903, and 1912, reported from -20 km south of the paleoliquefaction sites, and a small earthquake on January 1989 located near Bluffton indicate that this area has been moderately active in historic times. Releveling data have identified an ~30-km-long zone of uplift in the area. Stratigraphic data indicate the presence of an east-trending buried fault in the vicinity. These observations imply the presence of an additional seismic source zone in the South Carolina coastal plain, near Bluffton.

Archeological Investigation at the Palm Tree Site, Berkeley County, South Carolina

1976

Description An archeological investigation was conducted at the Palm Tree site, 38BK147, located on the Amoco Chemical Company's plant facility on the Cooper River in Berkeley County, South Carolina. The field work was done by the writer and David Ballenger of the Institute's staff during March and April of 1976. The laboratory analyses and reporting was accomplished, intermittently, during the early summer of that year. The research goals for this project were to investigate the adaptive strategies of this occupation in terms of the environment, and to develop models of settlement and adaptation. Intrasite artifact analysis, analysis of subsistence items and features, and intrasite comparisons were utilized to evaluate and describe the community pattern of this site and its adaptive significance in this environment. These data were then incorporated into more extensive intersite comparative analysis and synthesis to develop proposed settlement models. The archeological investigation indicated that extensive deposits of predominately Thom's Creek ceramics existed in situ below the plow zone of the site. Analysis of the frequency distribution and spatial occurrence of these ceramics revealed distinctive differences in decorative motifs from similar ceramic assemblages from coastal estuary sites on the Cooper River. A comparative analysis of ceramics from coastal sites which contained shell and interior lower Coastal Plain sites which do not contain shell was performed. Results of the experiment indicated a distinctive contrast between frequency distribution of certain motifs. Two models of settlement are presented to explain the distinctive distribution of these ceramic motifs, and an evaluation of these models in light of contemporary knowledge of this area is discussed.