Phase III Archaeological Data Recovery at the Wallys Leg Site (9GN203), St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia

The Sea Island Company has considerable land holdings on St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia. The long term development plans of the Sea Island Company include proceeding with due caution and awareness of the rich cultural heritage of the island (see Southerlin et al. 1998:1). In October 1997, Brockington and Associates, Inc., was contracted to provide Sea Island Company with an inventory of all cultural resources located within a large tract on the northern part of the island, encompassing approximately 1,620 hectares (4,000 acres). The Sea Island Company has promoted archaeological investigations, primarily in conjunction with the University of Florida, to conserve the island’s cultural heritage. It is because of this concern for cultural heritage that this research was undertaken. During the summers of 2000 and 2002, Brockington and Associates, Inc., was contracted by the Sea Island Company to conduct a cultural resources survey of this northern tract on St. Simons Island. During the course of our survey, nine (9) previously unrecorded sites (9GN197, 9GN199, 9GN200, 9GN290, plus four lithic/shell scatters) were identified, including 9GN203 (Charles and Whitley 2001; Jenkins and Whitley 2002).
9GN203 consists of a number of thick, discontinuous, horizontally-distributed shell midden deposits scattered across portions of the site. The Wallys Leg Site is bounded on its north and west sides by the Intracoastal Waterway, specifically the Frederica and Mackay rivers and their tributaries. The site boundaries were determined principally by the initial Phase II testing, which involved the excavation of 842 50-by-50-cm excavation units, spaced at 10-meter (35- ft) intervals. Two hundred and forty-four (244) units were positive. Investigators recovered Ceramic Late Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and Historic period artifacts. The densest area of the site measured 250 by 210 meters, or approximately 52,500 square meters (172,253 sq ft). The Sea Island Company contracted Brockington and Associates, Inc., to fulfill the mitigation requirements by conducting the data recovery portion of the project. In January of 2003, three months of fieldwork were initiated. Four backhoe scrapes (Scrapes A-D) were placed in areas where the chances of encountering additional subsurface features was high and wherever a clear line of sight could be established between mature trees. A total of 730 square meters (2,395 ft) of topsoil was stripped from the site, revealing the presence of significant subsurface deposits dating to the Ceramic Late Archaic, Middle Woodland, Mississippian, and Historic periods. The backhoe stripping resulted in the identification of an additional 51 cultural features. The identified features were excavated to reconstruct and address the behavior of the site’s prehistoric inhabitants.
Data recovery excavations at the Wallys Leg site were designed to recover a significant sample of information related to the prehistoric use and occupation of St. Simons Island. These investigations defined and sampled intact cultural deposits from occupations spanning the Late Archaic through the Historic periods.