SHEP: The Archaeology Of The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project
Other Keywords
Ironclad •
Shipwreck •
Savannah •
CSS Georgia •
Mitigation •
Conservation •
Archaeology •
Excavation •
Survey •
Civil War
Temporal Keywords
Civil War •
Late Nineteenth Century •
19th Century •
US Civil War •
19th Century (1861-1865) •
United States Civil War 1861-1865
Geographic Keywords
North America •
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)
- Documents (9)
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CSS Georgia And Research That Preceded Mitigation (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The Savannah District USACE and the Georgia Ports Authority are partnering to deepen and widen various portions of the Savannah River. As part of the associated permitting process, numerous archaeological investigations have been carried out by the District. A series of investigations of the remains of the ironclad CSS Georgia began following dredge impacts to the wreck in 1968. The following year Navy divers carried out an initial assessment of the wreck and in 1979 archaeologists from Texas...
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GIS and the CSS Georgia Recovery Project (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Visualizing the distribution of artifacts at the CSS Georgia site was a challenge due to the vast amount of material recorded and recovered. To assist in this, a GIS was created which incorporated data gathered from diver reconnaissance and recovery operations. First, unit sketches and notes were scanned and georectified. Later, artifacts positioned from the sketches and ultra-short baseline (USBL) readings were digitized and organized according to type. This allowed the archaeologists to...
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Low Water Bankline Survey of the Rice Plantation Landscape (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
As part of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, the Savannah district will construct a number of mitigation features to compensate for adverse environmental impacts. Panamerican Consultants conducted both terrestrial and submerged investigations within the Savannah River estuary. A large component of the overall project was a low water bankline survey of Steamboat Slough, as well as Middle and Little Back Rivers, which recorded a total of 116 sites. Associated with the rice plantation...
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Recording Shipwrecks At The Speed Of Light: Experimental Use Of An Underwater Laser Scanner On The Confederate Ironclad, CSS Georgia (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Since the dawn of underwater archaeology, the ability to record features with a high level of accuracy and detail compared to terrestrial sites has been an extremely difficult prospect. However, according to 2G Robotics, the ULS-200 underwater laser scanner can resolve features on an astounding millimetric scale, but under the most ideal conditions. While this has some very exciting implications for the field of underwater archaeology, the CSS Georgia resides in an extremely challenging and...
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Recovery Methods of the CSS Georgia Data Recovery Project (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In 2015, the remains of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War ironclad-ram and a National Register of Historic Places listed site, were fully archaeologically documented and removed as a permitting requirement for the proposed construction of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP). Conducted and overseen by archaeologists with Panamerican Consultants, the data recovery project required the development and implementation of unique methodologies relative to both the working environment and artifact...
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The Undine, A Tea Clipper in the Savannah River (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The Savannah District is proposing to expand the Savannah Harbor navigation channel. Diving investigations identified the remains of the Undine, a historically significant tea clipper built in Sutherland, England by the shipbuilder William Pile. In a class with other famous Clippers like the Flying Cloud and the Cutty Sark, the Undine represents the evolution apex of the sailing merchantman, and is in the class of the most significant clippers, those built specifically for the China Tea or Opium...
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Use Of Electronic Diver Positioning In A Challenging Marine Archaeological Environment (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
An important consideration in the excavation of an archaeological site is spatial control. Establishing provenience is particularly challenging in a harsh environment such as the Savannah River, where black water, high current, limited dive windows, safety constraints, and limited budgets do not allow traditional archaeological methods to achieve success in a project with the scope of the excavation and recovery of the CSS Georgia. The nature of the Savannah River environment dictates a more...
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"Where Did That Come From?" Accessioning Methods utilized on the excavation of the CSS Georgia. (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Accessioning artifacts from the excavation of the CSS Georgia present unique circumstances in that the requirements placed by the methods of excavation combined with the sheer scale and size of material necessitate specialized strategies in place to quickly and efficiently. Due to the changing archaeological phases as part of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, necessitating a complete excavation of the site, a progression from small artifact recovery to mechanized recovery a plan was put in...
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Why we conserve artifacts, the CSS Georgia Story. (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
As part of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, the USACE, Savannah District, tasked Panamerican Consultants with archaeologically recording and systematically recovering the artifacts from the wreck of the CSS Georgia. More than 125 tons of material was recovered, which created a few interesting challenges for the field crew and the Conservation Research Lab. What artifacts does one conserve, and what do we document and rebury. This paper presents a number of ways that a well-equipped...