Potomac Portage: Great Falls National Park and the Potomac Divide
Author(s): Greg Katz
Year: 2016
Summary
Dr. Stephen Potter has a long-standing interest in Great Falls Park, a unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP), in Virginia. The park is located in the Potomac Gorge, a rocky area where rapids divide the upper and lower Potomac River valley. Breathtaking in its beauty, Great Falls was also an important feature of the Native American and Colonial era landscapes. The falls were able to be crossed, but not without difficulty and danger. Native American petroglyphs are concentrated in Great Falls, attesting to the importance or significance of the area. There were several Colonial ventures in Great Falls, including an early canal. Dr. Potter was drawn to the rich history of the park, and its interpretive potential, and was instrumental in having an archaeological overview and assessment conducted. The work is being done as a multi-year project and is currently ongoing.
Cite this Record
Potomac Portage: Great Falls National Park and the Potomac Divide. Greg Katz. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434894)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Canal
•
petroglyph
•
Virginia
Geographic Keywords
North America
•
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
Pre-contact, Colonial, Federal
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 153