The MARTA Collection: The Early Days of Urban Archaeology and CRM

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Phoenix Project and the Rebirth of the MARTA Archaeological Collection", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) Collection is the result of the 1970s archaeological investigations conducted for the initial lines of this public transit system in Atlanta, GA. This archaeological project included lines in cardinal directions connecting at the epicenter of a city that was first established in 1837. At the time of this project, federally mandated cultural resource management was only a decade old, and ‘urban’ archaeology was just emerging as a new focus in the field. This paper will look at the work conducted under Dr. Roy Dickens and his associates as they navigated through the city of Atlanta and a new method of archaeological investigations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Phoenix Project and the Rebirth of the MARTA Archaeological Collection   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow