Settlement Archaeology and the Role of Persistent Places among Forager Societies in Eastern New York

Summary

The settlement system used by the prehistoric populations of Eastern New York is one in which forager societies often reoccupied the same landscape creating persistent places. Evidence of this can be seen in a variety of single and multi-component occupations that span the Late Archaic and Transitional (4,000-1,500 B.C.) and Early Woodland Periods (1,000 B.C.-A.D. 200). Artifact assemblages found at these sites suggest that the site’s occupants used a diverse array of tools manufactured from local and non-local lithic and ceramic materials. This paper examines a group of sites located along the Cobleskill Creek and its tributaries in western Schoharie County. Such sites are patterned in their arrangement and appear in what are arguably strategic locations along the waterway. Here, I discuss settlement of this landscape, and its potential to contribute to our understanding of foraging behavior in eastern New York. The locations are compared with similar persistent places in the adjacent river valleys.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Foragers in Middle Atlantic Prehistory

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Spatial Coverage