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

seen throughout the Late Prehistoric period. Hart
(1993) has already commented on this latter pattern,
along with an apparent increase in the use of attached
and detached semisubterranean storage facilities (Hart
1993, 1995). Overlapping hamlet and village components
at several sites suggest that settlement movement
was circumscribed, perhaps due to increasing notions
of territoriality and the recognition of a sense of place.
Finally, though it has been argued that the region was
abandoned after A.D. 1250, clear evidence of settlement
and the cultivation of maize is found in the
Meyersdale area through the end of the calibrated fifteenth
century. However, it is possible that village sites
were abandoned at this time by aboriginal inhabitants
of the region in favor of dispersed hamlets that continued
to cultivate maize.
FORT HILL VILLAGE SITE
The village sites excavated during the Somerset
County Relief Excavations are ideal for the task of
modeling village community organization, because
their layouts were completely or nearly completely
exposed. The majority of excavated village sites in the
Eastern Woodlands are not suitable for model building
because only a small portion of their community
plans were exposed, usually revealed through relatively
small and discontinuous excavation blocks. Too
many uncertainties would be generated if village layouts
were projected from the excavated portions of
this latter group of sites.
One village site investigated by the relief excavations
will be examined here with respect to aspects of
the general model of ring-shaped village community
organization. In 1939 and 1940, a WPA field crew conducted
excavations on Fort Hill, a mesa-like hill near
Confluence that is one of the lesser peaks of Negro
Mountain (Figure 3.7) (Augustine 1939a, b, 1940:51).
They encountered two superimposed Late Prehistoric
Monongahela village components on the summit of
Fort Hill, which they collectively designated the Fort
Hill (36SO2) site (Figure 3.8). The larger component,
referred to here as Fort Hill II, covered most of the
summit of Fort Hill, while the smaller component,
Fort Hill I, was almost completely situated within the
larger component’s plaza.
Topographic and Environmental Setting
An examination of Fort Hill and its immediate vicinity
in terms of select topographic and environmental
variables indicates that this imposing location was
quite suitable for settlement by a village community
Figure 3.7. View of Fort Hill and its immediate surroundings (photograph courtesy of The State Museum of
Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).
54 Means