Time's River: Archaeological Syntheses from the Lower Mississippi Valley

2. The Interstate 69 Project in Mississippi: Generation of an Archaeological Synthesis

2 The Interstate 69 Project in Mississippi Generation of an Archaeological Synthesis John R. Underwood, James H. Turner, and Kevin L. Bruce Introduction The Interstate 69 (I-69) proposed project corridor crosses the northwestern quarter of the state of Mississippi, a region better known to residents of the Southeast as the Mississippi Delta. The Phase I cultural resources survey of this project was conducted in 2002 and 2003 by Coastal Environments, Inc. (CEI), under contract to Neel-Schaffer, Inc., and the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT). Dozens of previously recorded cultural resources were relocated, and hundreds of unrecorded cultural resources were identified, a substantial number of which were determined potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Given the volume of significant resources that may be impacted and therefore require data recovery/mitigation, archaeologists from the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University (MSU) and MDOT proposed creation of an up-to-date regional environmental and archaeological synthesis to help streamline the Phase III cultural resources management (CRM) process and direct new research. This chapter is devoted to discussing the near-completion and potential of this study. General Corridor Background The portion of the I-69 project corridor that crosses northwest Mississippi constitutes less than 10 percent of the project corridor’s total length. This approximately 1,600-mile national highway project extends from the Canadian border and passes through 11 states (Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas) en route to its terminus at the Mexican border in the lower Rio Grande valley of southwest Texas (Federal Highway Administration [FHWA] 2001) (Figure 2.1). The The Interstate 69 Project in Mississippi / 9 northern 400 miles of this interstate between Port Huron, Michigan, and Indianapolis , Indiana, were built in the 1960s and 1970s to service the Great Lakes region following the 1956 passage of the Federal Aid-Highway Act, which authorized the creation of the interstate highway system (Cox and Love 1996). The remaining 1,200 miles were given preliminary definition and clear direction of purpose through a series of federal legislative acts between 1991 and 1998 (AA Roads 2004). Figure 2.1. Location of the proposed Interstate 69 corridor across the United States (see http://www.nationali69.0rg/servlet/com). 10 / Underwood, Turner, and Bruce In 1991 Congress passed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), which established and defined “high-priority” highway corridors of national importance. After the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in 1992, a steering committee composed of representatives from these eleven states began actively researching and evaluating high-priority transportation corridors from Indianapolis, Indiana, to the Texas/Mexico border to address the anticipated increase in commercial traf- fic among the three NAFTA partners (FHWA 2001). Two of these corridors merged in 1995 and were later subsumed under the Interstate 69 designation following the 1998 passage of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) (AA Roads 2004; FHWA 2001). Once completed, I-69 will provide a more efficient means of overland shipping from border to border, significantly reducing travel times and costs while servicing regions and communities that currently do not have direct access to the U.S. Interstate Highway System (Tennessee Department of Transportation [TDOT] 2004). In particular, the Mississippi Delta and portions of Texas are notably underserved by interstate highways. Development of this interstate will provide these regions new opportunities for economic growth as well as improved access to education, health, and commercial services that accompany improved transportation networks (MDOT 2004). To accomplish this Herculean task, the overall length of the I-69 corridor was divided into 32 Sections of Independent Utility, or SIUs, that address state and local needs, schedules, and funding constraints (FHWA 2001; TDOT 2004). Each section falls under the purview of the agencies in each state responsible for the planning, design, and construction of interstate highways; in Mississippi this is MDOT and its contracted consultants. Because specific highway locations vary greatly in terms of services required, the SIU process gives state transportation agencies the responsibility of addressing each particular location’s distinctive needs and the freedom to develop innovative and creative planning strategies for the management of required work. This also means that work associated with each section will have its own intrinsic value and significance (AA Roads 2004; FHWA 2001; TDOT 2004...