250 Years of Historic Occupation on Steel Creek, Savannah River Plant, Barnwell County, South Carolina

摘要

This report discusses the investigation of seven historic archaeological sites on the uppper coastal plain of the South Atlantic Slope in South Carolina. These seven sites are located on the United States Department of Energy's Savannah River Plant in the Steel Creek watershed. This project has its beginnings in 1980, when the Department of Energy initiated the reactivation of the L Reactor. At that time, the plan called for an increased thermal water discharage. In 1980, the Savannah River Plant Archaeological Research Program (SRP-ARP) conducted an intensive archaeological survey of the Steel Creek terrace edge and bottomland. In early 1984, the Department of Energy made the decision to construct a dam and create a cooling lake (L-Lake) on Steel Creek. This required a new survey. The new project initially was to be an intensive survey of the entire proposed lake area. However, construction time constraints changed the general outline of the project into a two-phased survey of the area. The first phase of the project was a survey of the dam, borrow area, discharge structure, and diversion canal. Ten sites were identified, none of which were considered eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. The second phase of the project was the intensive survey of the lake and embankment. Twenty-six sites were located in that portion of the survey, 11 of which were considered eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. (ERA citation 13:040010)