Exploring Pre-Contact Pithouse Features and Artifact Assemblage at the Amoskeag West Bank Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper presents the results of analysis conducted using lithic and ceramic artifacts from the Amoskeag West Bank site (27-HB-079) in Manchester New Hampshire, focusing on the evidence for a pithouse feature uncommon in the regional archaeological record. A targeted data recovery by IAC in 2022 yielded an assemblage of 961 Pre-Contact Native American artifacts, including several diagnostic specimens. Archaeologists also documented an array of hearths, postholes and pits within and around a large, downcutting feature consistent with a pithouse rarely seen in northern New England. Datable artifact types and organic material from several features indicate occupation during the Woodland and Archaic periods, with preliminary evidence for a Paleoindian component. This presentation focuses on the data that indicate the presence of a pithouse, the associated cultural features and artifacts, and how the current data can inform on human behavior at a site with temporally distinct cultural deposits from across the Pre-Contact era.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39812.0