Plantations Without Pillars: Archaeology, Wealth, and Material Life at Bush Hill Volume 2 Technical Description of Excavations, Features, and Artifacts

"The following document is Volume 2 of the report of investigations conducted at Bush Hill plantation (site 38AK660). A technical description of the excavation methods used at the site and the archaeological features encountered during fieldwork are discussed in this volume. The volume also contains a detailed description of the artifacts recovered from the site. The methods used to analyze archival information associated with the study area is also presented in this document. The technical field and artifact information summarized in Volume 2 forms the basis of the archaeological site interpretation that is presented in Volume 1. Bush Hill plantation is located near Upper Three Runs Creek in Aiken County, South Carolina on the Savannah River Site, a nuclear research facility operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Data recovery excavations were conducted at the site between 1996 and 1999 in response to the development of the Three Rivers Regional Landfill and Technology Center. Occupied between circa 1807 and 1920, the site, containing the archaeological remains of a planter’s dwelling and houselot, was owned by three generations of the George Bush family. The residents of Bush Hill plantation raised livestock and produced numerous subsistence crops as well as cotton. To date, Bush Hill is the only antebellum plantation on the Savannah River Site, or in the surrounding middle Savannah River valley, that has been the subject of data recovery excavations. Consequently, the archaeology conducted at the site is significant because it provides important information regarding the material conditions experienced by a 19th-century planter household in the region."