Cultural Resources Investigations of the West Bank Hurricane Protection Project, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana

Abstract : During February and March, 1989, a cultural resources survey of the V-levee segment of the West Bank-Hurricane Protection Project, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana was conducted. An Intensive pedestrian survey and shovel testing regime was done within the project corridor, an area of 345 acres. Two archeological sites, two landscape features, and three modern refuse loci are located within the the surveyed area. Brown's Sawmill (16JE217) is the remains of a mid-twentieth century sawmill. It is less than 50 years old, and it is not eligible for inclusion in the National Register; no further testing is recommended. Site 16JE218 consists of an intact shell midden adjacent to Bayou des Familles. Site 16JE218 is a significant site. The first landscape feature is a series of ten agricultural drainage ditches, and a small protection levee, associated with the 1867 - 1875 cultivation of sugarcane within Carter Plantation. The other is a segment of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century Barataria Road. Finally, three loci of modern refuse were identified. Neither the landscape features nor the modern refuse loci are significant cultural resources; no further work is recommended at them. Keywords: Archeology; Barataria basin, Baytown plain, Canary Islands, Coles Creek, Gulf of Mexico, History, Isleno, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Mississippian, Prehistory, Sawmill, Shell midden.