Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change: A.D. 700 –1300

egion, including Reckner (Augustine 1938a:8),
Emerick (Augustine 1938a:10, 1938b:42), Powell No. 1
(Augustine 1938c:62), Fort Hill (Augustine 1939a), and
Quemahoning (George 1983b:93-97). The conclusion
that the Late Prehistoric inhabitants of the Meyersdale
vicinity were intensive maize horticulturists who supplemented
their diet with cultivated sunflower and
squash, seasonally available fruits, edible wild seeds,
and hunting (Raymer and Bonhange-Freund 1999:34-
35) might possibly be extended to all Late Prehistoric
village sites in the region.
However, Raymer and Bonhange-Freund’s (1999:34)
conclusion that beans were an important dietary staple
throughout this period has been challenged through
direct AMS dating of beans, as detailed in Hart and
Scarry (1999) and Hart et al. (2002). Their research
shows that the common bean does not become prevalent
on sites in the Northeast until after the end of the
calibrated thirteenth century. This direct AMS dating
has also led to a reconsideration of the occupational
history of the Gnagey No. 3 site, once viewed as the
earliest dated nucleated village in the region (George
1983a). In conjunction with the AMS dating of beans
from this site (Hart and Scarry 1999), a review of the
full suite of radiocarbon assays originally obtained
from the site in the 1970s (Means 1998b) in terms of
stratigraphic evidence and a reconsideration of the
community patterns of the overlapping components
(Means 2001) suggests that the first component dates to
the second half of the calibrated thirteenth century and
the second component dates to the first part of the calibrated
fourteenth century. The proposed revised
chronology for the Gnagey No. 3 site indicates that the
lack of a central plaza in the first component cannot be
attributed to this component representing an early village,
especially since the early component at the
Petenbrink village site does have a central plaza. This
issue will be returned to in the Conclusions section of
this chapter. Given the existence of a nonresidential
ceremonial enclosure used throughout the Late
Woodland period and the first part of the early Late
Prehistoric period in the Meyersdale area as an integrative
facility for dispersed camps and hamlets
(Coppock et al. 1998), the presence of a central plaza at
the first component of the Petenbrink village site suggests
that the first villagers in the region recognized the
importance of incorporating a socially integrative facility
into their nucleated settlement.
The settlement history for the remainder of the Late
Prehistoric period in the Allegheny Mountains region
is unclear due to the paucity of radiocarbon assays for
the majority of village sites excavated in the region.
Since Hart and associates have amassed such strong
evidence that the timing of the adoption of the bean
dates to no earlier than the end of the calibrated thirteenth
century, we can use this information as a relative
chronological indicator and assume that sites with
beans date to after that period. However, the lack of
beans documented at many sites may not result from
their absence, but rather the fact that all contexts were
not sampled or that, for many sites excavated in the
premodern era, no flotation samples exist and the
recovery of beans was fortuitous.
The following summary is based largely on a rereading
of Hart (1993), Means (1996, 1998a, 1998b,
1999, 2000b, 2000c, and 2001), Means et al. (1998), and
Raymer and Bonhange-Freund (1999) in the context of
ideas presented throughout this volume. By the end of
the calibrated tenth century, if not earlier, nucleated settlements
arose in the region as socially integrative facilities
and multiple households became congruent within
a single settlement. Hamlets and seasonally occupied
specialized procurement camps continued to be
used after the first villages arose, with the functions of
some remaining unchanged. The location of some of
these nonvillage sites at the boundaries of two or more
ecotones suggests that they were placed to maximize
the exploitation of wild resources and probably were
part of a divided-risk strategy (see Hart 1993) that was
continued and intensified after the cultivation of maize
began. Maize may have been cultivated first at small
hamlets that continued to function as harvesting centers
after the rise of nucleated villages, though the evidence
for this is equivocal at best. Perhaps in conjunction
with increasingly complex social groupings, considerably
larger villages appeared during and after the
calibrated thirteenth century. Peck No. 1 apparently
increased in size from the absorption of single-household
hamlets that formed and maintained discrete
clusters in the village’s layout (Means 1998a). One of
the larger villages in the region, the second occupation
at Peck No. 2, has a relatively complex community pattern,
and may date to after the calibrated thirteenth
century, based on the recovery of beans from a single
feature. This component has evidence for two large
dwellings with a communal function (Hart 1993), segmentation
of the house ring including the development
of a discrete courtyard grouping (Means 1998a, 2001)
and a discrete cemetery that may have been associated
with a lineage group (Means 1999b). Other sites with
similar discrete cemeteries include Gnagey No. 3,
Reckner, Powell No. 1, and Troutman (Means 1999b).
Perhaps representing daughter settlements from
larger communities, comparatively small villages are
Chapter 3 Modeling Village Community Organization Using Data From the Somerset County Relief Excavations 53