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

were “activated” on ceremonial occasions to reinforce
a connection to the cosmos from which their geometric
models for settlement organization were derived.
Earlier in this chapter it was noted that the first component
at the Gnagey No. 3 site lacked a central plaza,
though sites with central plazas predate it. The lack of
a central plaza at the first component at the Gnagey
No. 3 site may represent a failed experiment in a new
settlement form that was quickly rectified by expanding
the settlement to include a plaza. The congruence
between the geometric centers of the two components,
which may have shared a central feature that
acted as an axis mundi, adds credence to this argument
(Means 2001).
A greater understanding of community organization
for ring-shaped village settlements will be
achieved by modeling Monongahela village sites
through an analysis of their spatial layouts. The application
of the hub-and-spoke model draws the
researcher’s attention to diametric, concentric, or circumferential
patterning in the arrangement of architectural
and nonarchitectural elements at a village
site. Some patterning might be subtle and different
patterning might occur at varying levels. As the modeling
process is extended toward village sites other
than Fort Hill, it is expected that discrete social
groups will be recognized from village layouts that
resulted from cooperative social, economic, and political
arrangements, ranging from informal to formal.
The methodology and theoretical propositions
employed and developed here can be extended to the
analysis of other village-level community organizations
throughout the Eastern Woodlands and beyond.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank John P. Hart and Christina B.
Rieth for allowing me to participate in their “Early
Late Prehistoric (A.D. 700-1300) Subsistence and
Settlement Change in the Northeast” symposium at
the New York Natural History Conference VI.
Interaction with other presenters led me to clarify
many of the ideas expressed in this paper. The
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s
Scholars in Residence program provided significant
support that allowed me to assemble data on Fort Hill
and other relief-excavated village sites. I could not
have been successful in this endeavor without the
considerable aid graciously provided by the staffs of
the Pennsylvania State Archives and the Division of
Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania.
The comments from two anonymous reviewers
helped strengthen and tighten the arguments set forth
in this paper. Finally, I would also like to acknowledge
the assistance and support provided by Laura
June Galke.
End Notes
1. Box-and-whisker plots indicate the essential
nature of a distribution in a simplified graphical
format. The rectangular box represents a distribution’s
middle half (or midspread), the line
dividing the box is its median, and the remaining
half is divided equally on either side of the box.
Values that are farthest from the box but still
within one midspread are indicated by an “x”
joined by a line (or whisker). Outliers to the distribution
are indicated by circles that are solid if
they are far outliers (Hartwig and Dearing
1979:23; Drennan 1996:39-41).
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