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In 1987, ESI conducted site testing at 8JA45 for the Mobile District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Archival evidence and survey level investigations indicated that the site represented the location of a Creek Indian settlement known as Ekanachattee (ca. 1770-1818).
Initially, a topographic site map was prepared. Concurrently, 73 auger tests were excavated to a minimum depth of 1 m in order to document stratigraphy and to locate concentrations of artifacts. Resulting data were used to determine where trenches and hand-excavated units should be placed and to control depths of excavation. Screened shovel tests were also used to establish site boundaries. Eight units (22 square meters) were then excavated by hand to varying depths up to two meters below surface.
The final phase of excavations consisted of excavation of 295 linear meters of trenches with a front-end loader. Depth of these trenches ranged from 10 cm to almost 3 m below surface. A tractor equipped with a box scraper pan was also used for fine control of mechanical excavation. Floors of mechanically excavated trenches were shovel shaved and trowelled when features were uncovered. All cultural features were then excavated by hand.
Aboriginal features encountered and excavated in the course of this work included two house floors with associated post holes and pits. Also, a rectangular fire pit containing charred corncobs was removed. Samples of fill from these features were removed and taken to the laboratory for flotation and wet-screening through fine mesh. A total of 809 aboriginal sherds and 808 lithic artifacts were collected. Analysis of these and of lesser amounts of Euro-American artifacts confirmed that the site did in fact represent a late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth-century Creek settlement.
Documents dated 1778 through 1818 were examined at the National Archives, Washington, D.C. and other repositories. These provided ethnohistorical accounts of the site under investigation, and were used to derive information concerning population size and settlement pattern. After extensive consultations between ESI, the Mobile District , and representatives of the Florida State Archeologist's Office, it was determined that a sufficient sample of features and artifacts had been recovered and documented, and that the site had no further research potential.
