Archaeological Investigations for the Newtown Pike Extension–Small Area Development Plan, Lexington, Kentucky
Project Name: Newtown Pike Extension–Small Area Development Plan (Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Item Number 7-593.00)
Location:Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Rural and/or Urban: Urban
Client: ENTRAN
Dates: 2003–present
CRA Project Manager: Tanya A. Faberson, Ph.D
Project Description: The Davis Bottoms Neighborhood, also designated as the Southend Redevelopment Area, is being developed in conjunction with the Newtown Pike Extension Project. This neighborhood began following the Civil War as a mixed community of European immigrants and African Americans. Over time, Davis Bottoms transitioned to a primarily African-American neighborhood at the turn-of-the-twentieth century, and by the 1920s, most of the residents were European Americans, many of whom were migrants from Southern Appalachia.
CRA conducted the initial archaeological surveys of the Southend Redevelopment Area in 2003 and 2004 resulting in the discovery of eight previously unrecorded sites. One of these sites, 15Fa284, was determined to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places upon review of the 2004 survey results by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet in consultation with the Federal Highway Administration and the Kentucky State Historic Preservation Office. Further consultation between the above-mentioned parties decided that two steps would be taken to mitigate the impacts of the proposed construction to the two site areas of Site 15Fa284, and CRA was selected for this process. The first consisted of an archival volume published in 2006, which included the historic context of the neighborhood, more detailed archival documentation of individual residential parcels, and a data recovery plan. The second step consists of the implementation of the data recovery plan for Site 15Fa284.
CRA is currently in the process of data recovery fieldwork at Site 15Fa284. This site contains extant dwellings, namely shotgun houses that date to the initial development of the neighborhood, as well as more modern structures. The data recovery plan for the fieldwork includes a variety of field and analytical methods. Fieldwork includes the hand excavation of test units, as well as the mechanical stripping of select house lots in order to uncover subsurface features, such as privies, cisterns, cellars, and house foundations. The features have a great potential to provide information concerning the former residents of the neighborhood in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The features that are discovered through the mechanical stripping will be excavated by hand, and the information will be carefully recorded so that the artifacts and other data can be analyzed and interpreted. Following the field excavations, the field data and cultural materials will be analyzed by the highly qualified staff at CRA. Some of the anticipated analyses include historic artifact analysis, ethnobotanical analysis, and faunal analysis. Together, the field and analytical data, as well as the aforementioned historic context developed by CRA, will be used to interpret the former lifeways of the residents of Davis Bottoms and bring to light a part of Lexington’s past not very well known.
