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

DISCUSSION
Table 3.3. Descriptive Statistics for Intracomponent Distances (meters) Between Dwellings at Fort Hill.
Statistic DISTANCE FROM A DWELLING TO ITS:
Next Nearest Dwelling Second Adjacent Dwelling Third Nearest Dwelling
Occupation 1 Occupation II Occupation I Occupation II Occupation I Occupation II
Range 0.15 -3.17 0.73 -5.18 0.48 -7.01 1.40 -18.81 1.46 -11.64 11.52 -20.18
Mean 1.22 2.38 2.74 4.75 5.00 15.24
Median 1.13 2.32 2.68 3.05 5.03 15.33
Standard Deviation 0.88 0.98 1.55 4.57 2.38 2.38
There are both obvious and subtle differences
between Fort Hills I and II. Fort Hill II, of course, was
much larger than Fort Hill I, having a total settlement
area that was over three times that of the smaller component.
The disparity in the size of their respective
plazas was proportionally even greater, with the plaza
at Fort Hill II over six times the size of the plaza at Fort
Hill I. If Fort Hill I’s plaza was once larger, as discussed
above, the proportional difference in plaza size would
have been reduced somewhat. The proportional difference
in total dwelling area shows less of a disparity,
since Fort Hill II had slightly less than 1.5 times the
total dwelling area of Fort Hill I. As is evident in the
box-and-whisker plot 1 of dwelling areas for each component
at Fort Hill, this is true despite the fact that
more than half the dwellings in Fort Hill II are larger
than every dwelling in Fort Hill I, with the exception of
House 16 (Figure 3.13). Nonetheless, the ratio of total
dwelling area to total settlement area at Fort Hill I is
slightly more than twice that of Fort Hill II, providing
one measure that the smaller component at Fort Hill
was more crowded. The spacing of dwellings in the
two occupations is a more direct indicator of crowding.
The overall distances between each dwelling and any
of its neighbors were much smaller for Fort Hill I than
for the larger component (Figure 3.14).
Many differences in village structure between the
two components are most parsimoniously accounted
for if Fort Hill II was purposely planned to alleviate
problems associated with scalar stresses caused when
Fort Hill I’s layout was no longer able to meet the challenges
of a growing population. There would have
been recognition that internal settlement growth was
compromising the geometric model(s) used not only to
structure the layout of the village, but was also adversely
affecting how social groups localized within the village.
In addition to internal pressures, it is also possible
that enhanced hostilities in the region helped motivate
the villagers at Fort Hill I to consider reconfiguring their
settlement to one that formed a more imposing element
on their cultural landscape. Whatever advantages led
villagers to settle the summit of Fort Hill in the first
place were sufficiently attractive that they apparently
overrode conflicting pressures for the community to fission
or relocate. That is, these advantages led the inhabitants
of Fort Hill I to live in increasingly crowded circumstances
before they could restructure their community.
The reconfiguration of Fort Hill I into Fort Hill II
depended not only on the desire or impetus to change
the layout of the settlement, but also sufficient labor to
Chapter 3 Modeling Village Community Organization Using Data From the Somerset County Relief Excavations 63