The Banister Allen Plantation (38AB102) and Thomas B. Clinkscales Farm: (38AB221) Data Recovery in the Richard B. Russell Multiple Resource Area Abbeville County, South Carolina.

Historical and archaeological study of the Allen Plantation homesite (38AB102) and the Thomas B. Clinkscales Farm site (38AB221) in Abbeville County, South Carolina was undertaken in conjunction with a broad range of cultural and environmental investigations associated with construction of the Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake on the upper Savannah River. Oral and written documentation indicate that Allen Plantation was one of the more prosperous cotton plantations within the county during the antebellum and postbellum periods. The Clinkscales Farm Site, although very poorly documented in written records, can be associated through oral documentation, architectural details, and artifact patterns with lower socio-economic status occupations during the postbellum period. Two recently documented cemeteries at Allen Plantation were tested and found to contain very poorly preserved skeletal and other organic remains, insufficient for in-depth study of demographic, cultural or nutritional/pathological/stress (osteological) population characters. Comparison of the two domestic occupation complexes revealed patterned intrasite structure which is believed to reflect the larger settlement and economic trends associated with the fragmentation of the plantation system after the Civil War. A model for a Piedmont Refuse Disposal Pattern is proposed as applicable to antebellum and postbellum sites located in Piedmont and foothills areas of pronounced local relief.