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

during the Late Prehistoric period. Clearly, Fort Hill is
an ideal setting from a defensive perspective. The surrounding
landscape is visible for kilometers in all
directions from Fort Hill, and its steep sides would
have made ascent difficult for anyone with—or even
without—a hostile intent (Augustine 1939a:3). Except
from the south, the smaller component would have
been virtually invisible from the base of Fort Hill.
Perhaps intentionally, the larger component would
have been more readily visible from all directions. The
palisade for Fort Hill II may have been purposely constructed
along the edge of the summit to make the village
appear larger than it actually was to outsiders and
therefore, a more imposing feature on the landscape. In
this manner, the inhabitants of Fort Hill II would have
discouraged hostile attacks from anyone traveling
through the area.
The summit of Fort Hill has well-drained soils with
good potential for cultivation (Yaworski 1983:41), and
it was an agricultural field at the time of the WPA excavations
(Augustine 1939a:4). It is certainly conceivable
that agriculture was practiced to some extent on this
hilltop by its Monongahela inhabitants. The presence
of each village component with its associated architectural
remains, as well as spaces set aside for non-agricultural
purposes, would have restricted the amount of
land available for cultivation. Small garden plots could
have been maintained throughout Fort Hill, especially
on its eastern point, where no signs of prehistoric habitations
or features were found. Freshwater springs
located on the eastern and western slopes of Fort Hill
(Augustine 1940:51) would have been a ready source of
water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and, perhaps, for
the maintenance of small garden plots. The majority of
the fields needed to support the Late Prehistoric inhabitants
of Fort Hill would likely have been spread
throughout the surrounding countryside, where there
are a limited number of discrete and noncontiguous
areas suitable for cultivation (Yaworski 1983:41). These
relatively level areas include a 0.8 kilometer-long ridge
61 meters below the summit of Fort Hill that was planted
in maize when the WPA excavations were conducted
(Cresson 1942:21).
In addition to scattered areas suitable for agriculture,
the Monongahela inhabitants of Fort Hill had access to
several other microenvironments located in close proximity.
While the steep sides of Fort Hill and most of the
surrounding hills are not well suited for any form of
agriculture, they have a good potential for a variety of
wild floral and faunal resources (Yaworski 1983:44,131-
132). Additional resources are available along two permanent
streams that are almost equidistant from Fort
Hill: the Casselman River, 0.6 kilometers to the north;
and McClintock Run, approximately 0.5 kilometers to
the south. The presence of a bone fishhook at Fort Hill
(Augustine 1939b) suggests that fishing supplemented
the gathering of wild plants, the hunting of wild animals,
and the cultivation of domesticated crops. It
seems likely that the Late Prehistoric inhabitants of
Fort Hill met the challenges of following a horticultural
lifestyle by practicing a divided-risk strategy, as
described by Hart (1993).
Overview of Fort Hill I and Fort Hill II
The following overview of the two components at
Fort Hill is based on a review of field records and
unpublished documents located in The State Museum
of Pennsylvania and a single short published article
(Augustine 1939a, b, 1940; Cresson 1942). It should be
briefly noted that a review of all the sites investigated
as federal relief projects in Somerset County revealed
that these sites were excavated and documented following
standardized procedures not unlike those
employed by much more recent excavations in
Pennsylvania and elsewhere (Means 1998a). A number
of discrepancies between published and unpublished
sources on Fort Hill were reconciled by thoroughly
examining the site map included with Cresson (1942)
and reanalyzing field records, which contain information
on the locations, dimensions, and contents of
architectural and nonarchitectural features. This task
was particularly important for developing an understanding
of the occupational history of each individual
component and their temporal relationship with
respect to each other.
Fort Hill I was an oval, palisaded village site that
enclosed several dwellings, which in turn demarcated
an open plaza that was not centrally located within
the village site. Several of the dwellings and the palisade
itself show evidence for rebuilding. Dwellings
seem almost haphazardly distributed around the
plaza within Fort Hill I. Almost paradoxically, Fort
Hill II, while larger, had a much simpler community
pattern than Fort Hill I. Fort Hill II was apparently
built to have the maximum possible dimensions,
given the constraints of the mesa-like summit and the
villagers adherence to a circular to oval settlement
model. The house ring associated with the larger component
consisted of a single row of houses surrounding
a fairly large plaza area. Only three dwellings in
the larger occupation show evidence for rebuilding
and the proliferation of postholes seen at other
Somerset County village occupations was not present
in the larger occupation.
Though Fort Hill I was smaller than Fort Hill II, it
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