Archaeological Investigation at 22IT537 Tombigbee River Multi-Resource District Itawamba County, Mississippi-1979, a Field Report, White Springs Site (22IT537) 1979-1986

A program for archaeological data recovery at site 22lt537 ("537") was conducted during the summer months of July and August, 1980, by the University of Southern Mississippi, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Working under Contract Number DACW01-79-C-0203 through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, the excavations at "537" were perhaps the last salvage effort at a single-site oriented study to be conducted along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. The data recovery at "537" can only be viewed as a salvage effort regarding the field work at the site. It was located in an extremely active construction area, and regardless of the intrinsic cultural values of the site, it had to go. Accordingly, since the field work required haste, a concerted effort between the Corps and USM was undertaken to design a program with an eye toward the analytical import of the cultural information at the site. As a result, the Corps was willing to fund considerably the investigations as the integrity and condition of the data merited considerable attention.