Changes in Indigenous Occupation Strategies in Eastern Pennsylvania: An Exploration of Changing Land Use at the Red Hole Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This poster summarizes the preliminary results of a survey conducted in eastern Pennsylvania exploring land use through time performed as part of a master’s thesis. The Red Hole site is in Schuylkill County’s anthracite region and was identified in 1968 as a multicomponent campsite with occupations ranging from the Archaic to the contact periods. Due to minimal testing in this area, there is not much known about Indigenous settlement strategies or the details of the contact period. This project will utilize geophysical survey techniques and, as the environmental setting for this region is geomorphologically restrictive, will measure the effectiveness of those methods to identify Indigenous features. The research objective is to define the use of the site through time focusing on how cultural changes affected that use. Additionally, the project will identify if a contact period component exists at this site and how that may have impacted Indigenous land use. The historical background coupled with the limited testing makes this site ideal to explore these objectives. Correspondingly, this project has the potential to significantly contribute to the knowledge regarding Indigenous settlement patterns in eastern Pennsylvania through time, as well as the effect of the contact period in the Mid-Atlantic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37301.0