1 PREHISTORY OF CANAAN VALLEY: AN ECOLOGICAL VIEW ...

PREHISTORY OF CANAAN VALLEY: AN ECOLOGICAL VIEW 

George D. Constantz, Canaan Valley Institute 

A Point of View 

Biologists have a long tradition of applying the theories of ecology, animal behavior, and 

evolutionary biology (e.g., Darwin 1871, Morris 1967, Wilson 1978, Diamond 1992, 

Ehrlich 2000) to interpret the human condition. Two beliefs have supported this 

approach: (a) Homo sapiens and other modern primates evolved from a common 

ancestor, and (b) humans and other animals have interacted with environmental factors in 

fundamentally similar ways. 

I am one of those biologists, with interests in the evolutionary ecology of 

Appalachian animals (Constantz 1994). From this perspective, I offer an ecological 

interpretation of prehistoric humans in Canaan Valley. 

Time Periods 

Archeologists divide the human past into periods distinguished by cultural indicators. I 

developed general descriptions of the following major periods from several sources 

(McMichael 1968; Niquette and Henderson 1984; Ison et al. 1985; Gardner 1986; Lesser 

1993; Thomas 1993, 1994; Fagan 2000; Sullivan and Prezzano 2001a). 

Paleo-Indian Period [12,500-11,000 years before present (YBP)] 

Towards the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (1.8 million-10,000 YBP), at full 

Wisconsin glaciation, a tundra-like environment existed at least 300 km south of the ice 

margin at elevations as low as 820 m. Canaan Valley, which is about 225 km south of 

that zone (Van Diver 1990) and 975-1310 m in elevation, would have been within this 

periglacial region. During this epoch, a diverse set of large-bodied mammals, including 

the ground sloth, giant armadillo, dire wolf, short-faced bear, saber-toothed tiger, woolly 

mammoth, mastodon, horse, giant tapir, camel, caribou, moose, elk, bison, and musk 

oxen, roamed North America (Kurten 1976). 

Studies of prehistoric human teeth, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, virus strains, 

and languages support the theory that the first Americans immigrated from Siberia 

(Diamond 1987). Human artifacts dated at 25,000 and 12,000 YBP have been found at 

Beringia's western and eastern (Alaska) ends, respectively. It is consistent that the first 

humans in eastern North America used the core- and blade-based technology that was 

standard in the Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia (Carr et al. 2001). 

At the end of the Pleistocene, the climate began warming. In the Mid-Atlantic 

highlands, by 12,700 YBP the boreal spruce forest replaced tundra (Lesser 1993, Yahner 

1995), and by 10,500 YBP, near the time of human arrival, the boreal forest was in turn 

replaced by a mixed coniferous-deciduous forest. 

The Canadian ice sheet between Alaska and the contiguous U.S. partly melted at 

11,700 YBP to yield a long narrow north-south ice-free corridor just east of the Rocky 

Mountains (Pielou 1991). Some early Americans probably dispersed southward through 

this gap, while others may have arrived via Pacific coastal routes. Within a few centuries, 

the distinctive stone weapon called Clovis fluted point appeared throughout North and 

Central America (Flannery 2001). People spread 16,000 km from Alaska to Patagonia 

within 1,000 years, a dispersal rate of only 16 km per year. This is why the entire Clovis 

toolkit is virtually identical throughout North America. The Appalachians were initially 

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penetrated by humans by 12,000 YBP (Carr et al. 2001). Possible pre-Paleo-Indian 

artifacts at Meadowcroft Rockshelter in the Appalachin Plateau province of 

southwestern Pennsylvania, about 150 km northwest of Canaan Valley, have been dated 

at 17,000 YBP (Adovasio et al. 1990, Adovasio and Page 2002, Sullivan and Prezzano 

2001b), but several critics assert the samples were contaminated. A pre-Clovis presence 

is supported by two other sites, (1) Monte Verde, Chile at 12,500-13,000 YBP; and (2) 

Hell Gap, Wyoming at 11,400 YBP (Carr et al. 2001). 

Terminal dates of the Clovis horizon are close to those for the extinction of 35-40 

species of large-bodied mammals. This synchrony has led some paleoecologists to 

champion the "overkill hypothesis," in which Clovis hunters exterminated much of the 

Pleistocene megafauna (Martin 1984). Alternately, perhaps additively, they died out 

because of climatic warming (Flannery 2001). 

Eastern Paleo-Indians seem to have followed a more diverse hunting-gathering 

subsistence strategy than their western big-game hunting contemporaries (Thomas 1994, 

Walker et al. 2001). More regionally, from small sites in major stream valleys, especially 

along the eastern and western flanks of the Appalachians (Lane and Anderson 2001), they 

exploited nuts, hackberries, fish, waterfowl, and small mammals in a lifeway called 

broad-spectrum foraging (Carr et al. 2001). It is consistent that in the East fluted points 

have not been recovered in association with the remains of large Pleistocene mammals. 

Eastern Paleo-Indians, subsisting as thinly scattered mobile multi-family bands, produced 

a great variety of fluted points. This comparatively higher diversity of projectile points 

has been labeled the Eastern Fluted Point Tradition (Fagan 2000). 

In the East, Clovis points have been found in Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, 

Pennsylvania, Illinois, along the Ohio River, and in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, 

Georgia, and Alabama. Although Paleo-Indians were rare in the Appalachian Mountains 

(Turner 1984), possibly because they generally avoided heavily dissected uplands 

(Brashler 1984, Bush 1996), fluted points have been found in West Virginia along the 

Lower Monongahela River and at the Ohio River at Parkersburg, and more locally at 

Judy Gap and Marlinton, and in Preston County (Lesser 1993). The Paleo-Indian 

extended-use site closest to Canaan Valley may have been about 100 km east along the 

Shenandoah River. 

Archaic Period (11,000-3,000 YBP) 

The climate continued warming until only the highest summits remained suitable for 

spruce and fir. Throughout much of the Mid-Atlantic highlands, the ecological transition 

from spruce-pine boreal forest to the mesic oak-hickory community was completed 

during 10,000-9,000 YBP (Braun 1950, Lane and Anderson 2001). With temperatures 

similar to those of higher latitudes, Canaan Valley's cold humid climate has maintained a 

refugium for boreal plants. 

Growing human populations began to concentrate in the region's floodplains. In the 

Appalachian Plateau physiographic province, which includes Canaan Valley, streams run 

through narrow V-shaped valleys, so large floodplains were an uncommon habitat (Wall 

1981) (Fig. 1). Archaic sites have been uncovered in large floodplain areas along the 

Cheat, Tygart Valley, and South Branch Potomac rivers (Brashler 1984). 

A hallmark of the Archaic Period was subsistence generalization. Hunting was 

deemphasized. In contrast to the specialized fluted point designed for hunting big 

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animals, archaic toolkits were more diverse. At minimal energy expense, gardening 

diversified their foods. Eastern Archaic people also relied on nuts, like hickory and black 

walnut, because they could be collected efficiently and yielded almost 5 times the energy 

as the same mass of lean meat (Ison 1996). 

A band's annual movements appear to have been based on exploiting multiple, 

diffuse resources (Cleland 1976). Through seasonal rounds, people moved between yearround 

floodplain base camps and temporary specialized upland resource collection 

camps. An abundant, temporarily available mass resource in the uplands along the 

Shenandoah Valley, for example, was fruits of the American chestnut (Castanea dentata). 

Stated in a different way, "extensified" uses of the uplands may have been part of 

"tethered nomadism," in which base camps were the focus of increasingly sedentary 

occupations, from which short-term forays were made to upland procurement sites 

(Custer 1996). 

Versaggi et al. (2001) developed such a settlement-subsistence model for the Late 

Archaic in the Susquehanna Valley. Overnight upland sites were used by daily foragers, 

possibly women procuring and processing seasonally aggregated foods, who ranged out 

of residential base camps on valley floors. 

Increasing sedentism allowed each group to adapt its own brand of subsistence for 

exploiting local resources. By the Late Archaic, local specialization had generated 

stylistic regionalization of artifacts (Sullivan and Prezzano 2001b). Other trends included 

greater levels of population, specialization and efficiency, cultural complexity, interregional 

trade (in Late Archaic), and mortuary ceremonialism (Gardner 1996). 

The Archaic Period featured several technological innovations: (1) mortar and 

pestle for grinding nuts and seeds into meal, which was easier to digest, transport, and 

store; (2) the linked package of notched and stem points and the atlatl, a spear thrower 

with greater force and accuracy than a hand-impelled spear; (3) chipped stone axe, for 

chopping, digging, skinning, and many other purposes, which was more versatile than the 

groundstone axe (introduced at 8,000 YBP) because it held an edge better; (4) twist drill 

for piercing stone and bone; (5) stone bowl (introduced at 3,000 YBP) for cooking on hot 

rocks, but which was probably too heavy to move from base camp; and (6) use of two 

complexes of plant cultigens (cultivated varieties): (a) native plants like goosefoot, marsh 

elder, and sunflower, and (b) non-native species like gourd, squash, and corn. 

In the East, the general Archaic sequence has been uncovered in the Shenandoah 

Valley of Virginia, at St. Albans in southwestern West Virginia, through the central Ohio 

River valley, and in Tennessee and North Carolina. More locally, Archaic sites have been 

found in the transition zone between the Ridge and Valley and Appalachian Plateau 

provinces, and in the floodplains of the Cheat, Tygart Valley, and South Branch Potomac 

rivers. 

Woodland Period (3,000-800 YBP) 

The Woodland Period's climate was essentially the same as todays. Canaan Valley 

averages -4.2 C and 8.9 cm of precipitation in January; July means are 19.2 C and 13.2 

cm, respectively (Stephenson 1993a). Annually, the Valley averages 305 cm of snowfall, 

90 frost-free days, and 160 cloudy days (80-100% cloud cover). Freezing temperatures 

can occur in any month. 

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Canaan Valley is within the Allegheny Mountain Section of West Virginia. This 

section, with deep valleys and the state's highest elevations and heaviest rainfall, supports 

a set of plants classified as Northern Forest, which in turn can be subdivided into two 

community types (Strausbaugh and Core undated, Clarkson 1964, Stephenson 1993b): 

1. The Northern Evergreen Forest – Red spruce (Picea rubens), the most distinctive 

representative of this community type, was formerly abundant on mountaintops 

and plateaus. Canaan Valley supported one of the finest climax red spruce forests 

in the East (Fortney 1993). Other trees include balsam fir (Abies balsamea), 

eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis), and 

American mountain-ash (Sorbus americana). Frequent fog, cold temperatures, 

and abundant precipitation contributed to the development of the forest. Forests of 

this type were extremely dense and featured giant trees 2 m in diameter and 40 m 

tall. Heath thickets made parts of the Valley almost impassable. 

2. Northern Hardwood Forest – This community type, which covers extensive areas 

with rich moist loamy soil, occurs below the Northern Evergreen Forest and 

above 915 m in elevation. This community includes yellow and black (Betula 

nigra) birch, sugar (Acer saccharum) and red (A. rubrum) maples, American 

beech (Fagus grandifolia), American basswood (Tilia americana), eastern 

hemlock, eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), white ash (Fraxinus americana), 

black cherry (Prunus serotina), cucumbertree (Magnolia acuminata), tulip poplar 

(Liriodendron tulipifera), and northern red (Quercus rubra) and chestnut (Q. 

prinus) oaks. 

Woodland peoples' foods came increasingly from gardened cultigens and foraged 

wild plants. Effective storage of surplus corn, beans, squash, and sunflower sustained 

scattered hamlets in river floodplains. During seasonal rounds that integrated hunting, 

fishing, horticulture, and plant gathering, the uplands were used for short-term hunting 

and gathering. 

In the East, the shift from reliance on wild plants and animals to food production 

economies passed through several stages (Smith 1989): (1) domestication of four plant 

species (listed in paragraph above) during 4,000-3,000 YBP, (2) emergence of food 

production economies at 2,250-1,800 YBP, and (3) a rapid, broad-scale shift to 

agriculture dominated by non-indigenous maize during 1,200-900 YBP. 

Cultural trends included increasing levels of floodplain occupation, aggregation of 

dispersed single-household hamlets into larger settlements, sedentism, agriculture, food 

storage, stone mound burials, inter-regional trade, and pottery-making. The uplands were 

used less during the Woodland Period (Cunningham 1983, Stewart 1983, Wall 1981). By 

1,000 YBP, diverse vibrant cultures occurred throughout the Appalachian Mountains. 

Late Prehistoric (800-450 YBP) and Protohistoric (450-300 YBP) Periods 

Some classifications include Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric periods. Late Prehistoric 

people maintained palisaded villages in floodplains, relied on corn agriculture, and used 

small camps on upland stream terraces. Just antedating recorded history, Protohistoric 

people had access to European trade goods but no direct contact with Europeans. In 

southwestern West Virginia, some Protohistoric villages featured burials with pottery 

(Maslowski 1984). 

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How many native North Americans were living in 1491? Estimates range widely, 

from 900 thousand to 18 million (Verano and Ubelaker 1991), in part because many died 

before a first estimate was possible. The indigenous genome conferred little resistance to 

some Old World diseases like smallpox, measles, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and 

influenza (Horse Capture 1991). Swift hemisphere-wide pandemics started at points of 

contact with the first explorers and traders. Native populations were reduced by 50-90% 

(Viola 1991) and cultural systems profoundly changed (Henderson 1992) before literate 

observers arrived (Diamond 1998). 

Historic Period (350 YBP-present) 

Before 300 YBP, aboriginal people appear to have abandoned most of West Virginia. 

Although several reasons for this hiatus have been offered, such as the holocaust from 

infections, depopulation by the Iroquois Confederacy, and westward displacement by 

aggressive Europeans, the causes remain a mystery. 

Trails 

The rapid spread of Paleo-Indian fluted points, Archaic atlatls, Woodland horticulture, 

and pathogens was presumably facilitated by a network of trails (Haynes 1996) (Fig. 2). 

Via trails, people of the western Mid-Atlantic participated in a larger cultural sphere that 

shared ideas, tools, and other cultural elements (Gardner 1984). In a heavily dissected 

region with a dendritic drainage pattern, like the Canaan Valley area, travel occurred 

along ridges and stream bottoms (Bush 1996). [The Native American trail system is the 

basis of our mountain highway system (Sullivan and Prezzno 2001c).] The resulting 

cultural diffusion contributed to a regional identity (Sullivan and Prezzano 2001c). 

Facilitated by trails, prehistoric people of the Mid-Atlantic uplands participated in 

an extensive trade network that reached from the east coast to the Rocky Mountains and 

from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Valued rocks, like cherts from Ohio, flints 

from Illinois, and obsidian from Yellowstone, were passed hand to hand, from one band 

to another, over hundreds, even thousands, of miles. Other trade items included mica 

from North Carolina, copper from the Great Lakes, and mollusk shells from the Gulf of 

Mexico. All of these items have been found at prehistoric sites within the cultural sphere 

that includes Canaan Valley. 

A dominant path, known as the Great Warrior Trail, extended along the grain of the 

Appalachians from New York to Alabama (Sullivan and Prezzano 2001a). Probably 

functioning by 5,000 YBP, this well-worn route enabled the movement of commodities, 

people, and ideas (Watson 2001). 

Projectile points from all prehistoric periods have been recovered from West 

Virginia and adjacent areas (Lesser 1993). Because its artifact assemblages reflect 

cultural influences from the Ohio Valley, the northeast, and the southeast, the Mid- 

Atlantic uplands appear to have been a melting pot of the prehistoric cultures of eastern 

North America. 

Therefore, because North America was criss-crossed by trails, which presumably 

facilitated the movement of people, valued items, and ideas over vast distances, the 

prehistoric people of the Canaan Valley area were part of the regional, even continental, 

cultural trends that characterized the major prehistoric periods. 

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Archaeological Site 

The distribution of archeological sites throughout the Canaan Valley region suggests an 

interesting pattern (Fig. 3). Multiple sites have been found in major valleys along the 

Cheat, Tygart Valley, and South Branch Potomac rivers. In contrast, the upland areas 

have yielded fewer prehistoric sites. 

To illustrate the diversity of prehistoric land uses in the Mid-Atlantic highlands, I 

summarize the findings at four archeological areas: 

1. The Cheat River area is a series of 31 sites along 55 km of the Cheat River, 20 

km west of Canaan Valley (Jensen 1970). Although this area has yielded no 

evidence of Paleo-Indians, two fluted points have been found in neighboring 

Preston County. The earliest evidence of humans in this area is within Horseshoe 

Bend at 8,200 YBP. The area was next occupied at 7,500 YBP, possibly by 

nomadic hunting families. The area's projectile points suggest immigration from, 

or trade with, the South. Woodland signs include stone burial mounds and 

limestone tempered pottery. These people lived in small villages with an economy 

based on hunting and corn-beans-squash agriculture. The important Seneca Trail 

crossed the Cheat River at Horseshoe Bend (Fig. 2). 

During 1,000-400 YBP, people of the Monongahela culture lived here in 

fortified villages, hunted with small triangular points that were probably propelled 

by bow and arrow, and practiced sophisticated horticulture. By 300 YBP, the 

Cheat River area was empty of people. 

2. The Burnsville Reservoir area, composed of 23 sites along 16 km of the Little 

Kanawha River, is 110 km southwest of Canaan Valley (Broyles et al. 1975, 

Fitzgibbons et al. 1979). Even though it was occupied from 10,500 YBP to the 

early 17th century, and is located in wide valley areas with tributaries and 

terraces, it appears that no site was more than a seasonal camp or bivouac. Some 

sites served for lithic reduction (crafting a tool from a raw stone). The artifact 

assemblage reflects affinities with the Carolina piedmont and upstate New York. 

3. Three Tygart Valley sites, located on the western slope of Cheat Mountain 45 km 

southwest of Canaan Valley, reveal prehistoric lithic technologies. 

At the Files Run Quarry site, the Greenbrier Formation features exposed 

nodules of chert, a stone that local people began using in the Early Archaic 

(Lesser 1988). Although Greenbrier chert is only fair to mediocre in its knapping 

qualities, it may have been the best stone available locally. The site's debitage 

assemblage indicates intense or long-term activity. Nodules were collected or 

extracted, then moved to a reduction station below and adjacent to the quarry, as 

well as to another reduction station 4 km southwest of the quarry. 

Multicomponent sites within 9.5 km have also yielded Greenbrier chert points. 

The Limekiln Run site, located on a sandstone bench less than 100 m below 

an outcrop of Greenbrier limestone, served as a reduction and manufacturing 

station (Brashler and Lesser 1985). Artifacts suggest the chert was extracted and 

moved below to be reduced from raw material to tools. 

The Hill site is a typical example of an Archaic settlement in the floodplains. 

Most of its debitage consists of Greenbrier chert (Lesser 1986). 

4. A new Canaan Valley site is situated on the east side of West Virginia Route 32 

in the Valley, on a small knoll near a spring at an elevation of 985 m (Traver et al. 

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2002). In June 2002, over 200 shovel test pits yielded 15 prehistoric artifacts, 

including three types of chert flakes and a fragment of a bifacial tool (Robert F. 

Hoffman, pers. comm.). Based on local lithology, the chert is probably not local. 

Although the artifacts could not be affiliated with a specific culture, the lack of 

ceramics is consistent with an Archaic culture (Hoffman, pers. comm.). 

The pattern of lithic scatter suggests the site hosted at least two brief 

stopovers for hunting and curation of stone tools. Neither fire-cracked rock, 

ground or stone pecked stone tools, pottery sherds, nor evidence of a village or 

base camp were found. 

Although four projectile points had previously been found near this site, this 

seems to be the first published report of prehistoric artifacts in Canaan Valley. 

Why have so few artifacts been found in the Valley? Obvious possibilities include 

inadequate archeological sampling and scant prehistoric use. I will discuss this 

more in following sections. 

The Canaan Valley site is an example of a small lithic scatter, the most 

common site type in the uplands (Turner 1996, Wall 1996). Other lithic scatter 

sites have yielded primary reduction, secondary, and retouch flakes, and seem to 

have supported tasks like stone procurement, biface reduction, and tool 

resharpening (Tourtellotte 1996, Custer 1996). Upland lithic scatters may have 

been left by specialized parties who knew the area's resources and used the 

uplands for procurement tasks (Haynes 1996). 

Both the general patterns of space use during the major prehistoric periods and the 

specific findings at local sites suggest that prehistoric people occupied Canaan Valley for 

short periods. 

Why did prehistoric people visit Canaan Valley? 

Prehistoric people may have used Canaan Valley for several possible reasons; including 

plentiful water, escape from parasites, gathering of psychoactive plants or specialized 

materials for baskets, and refuge from aggressive bands, but possibly the most significant 

were acquiring stone and food. 

Stone 

Prehistoric knappers made tools by removing flakes from a stone by hitting it with a 

harder stone, or with a bone (Gardner 1986). In some cases, the flake was the desired 

tool; in other cases the piece remaining, or core, would be fashioned into a tool. 

In the East, raw forms of valued stone appear to have anchored centrally based 

wandering societies (Fagan 2000), a relationship that may explain a strong statistical 

correlation between Paleo-Indian sites and lithic sources (Bush 1996). If certain kinds of 

stone were needed for specific applications, the location of material would have restricted 

the distribution of people, or to have caused them to go great distances to acquire it 

(Haynes 1996). In contrast to the various kinds of useful stones in the Ridge and Valley 

province, only Greenbrier chert was available west of the Allegheny Front (Brashler 

1984, Haynes 1996) (Fig. 1). 

High quality chert deposits almost always show evidence of prehistoric use. The 3 

chert sites on Cheat Mountain described above are examples of quarries, defined as 

camps occupied for the extraction of rock from outcrops (Turner 1984). 

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The raw stone materials in a prehistoric site closely (e.g., within 15-20 km) reflect 

the predominant geologic composition of the local area (Haynes 1996). Greenbrier chert 

nodules were formed from the siliceous spicules of sponges that lived in the open ocean, 

but such depositional environments did not exist at the relevant time at Canaan Valley 

(Thomas C. Wynn and David L. Matchen, pers. comm.). The source of Greenbrier chert 

closest to Canaan Valley may have been the Tygart Valley quarries (Fig. 1). I conclude 

that prehistoric people did not visit Canaan Valley for stone. 

Food 

As I have said, eastern peoples were not specialized big-game hunters (Thomas 1993). 

Sticking close to river valleys, they systematically moved within their home range, taking 

advantage of seasonally available plant and animal foods. Such a generalized ecological 

adaptation may have buffered people against the failure of any particular food species. 

Canaan Valley appears to have offered a variety of animal foods. Potential game 

mammals included snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), eastern (Sylvilagus floridanus) 

and New England (S. transitionalis) cottontails, red (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) and gray 

(Sciurus carolinensis) squirrels, beaver (Castor canadensis), muskrat (Ondatra 

zibethicus), woodchuck (Marmota monax), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), 

woodland bison (Bison bison), elk (Cervus elaphus), long-tailed weasel (Mustela 

frenata), fisher (Martes pennanti), mink (Mustela vison), river otter (Lutra canadensis), 

black bear (Ursus americanus), bobcat (Felis rufus), mountain lion (Felis concolor), gray 

fox (Urocyon cinereoargentus), and timber wolf (Canis lupus). Game birds included 

woodcock (Philohela minor), wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), ruffed grouse (Bonasa 

umbellus), passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), wood duck (Aix sponsa), and other 

duck (Anas) species. Edible fishes included white (Catostomus commersoni) and northern 

hog (Hypentelium nigricans) suckers, brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), rock bass 

(Ambloplites rupestris), green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus), bluegill (L. macrochirus), and 

smallmouth (Micropterus dolomieu) and largemouth (M. salmoides) basses (Stauffer et 

al. 1995). Although moderately diverse, these animals were thinly dispersed and thus did 

not lend themselves to specialized, efficient exploitation (Brashler 1984). 

Proposed Ecology of Prehistoric Humans in Canaan Valley 

Drawing from the broad regional trends and specific local findings, I synthesize a holistic 

model of the ecology of prehistoric people (sensu Lesser and Brashler 1996, Dancey 

2001) in the Canaan Valley. From this general model, I extract several testable 

hypotheses. 

General model 

The world is a heterogeneous place. Envision the environment as a universe of patches 

and gradients of dozens of variables (e.g., insolation, wind exposure, temperature, 

moisture, acidity, nitrate concentration, 3-dimensional structure, predators, food species, 

competitors, parasites, pathogens) presenting living things with a variety of resources and 

constraints (Krebs 1972, Ricklefs 1990). In the case of the Appalachian Plateau, the 

landscape features rugged terrain, abundant water, temperate deciduous forest, rocky 

soils, high biotic diversity, and narrow floodplains (Sullivan and Prezzano 2001b). 

8

The prehistoric human animal was intimately connected to its patchy environment. 

His or her life revolved around exploiting some resources (e.g., knappable stone, hickory 

nuts, and white - tailed deer) and avoiding sites with limiting factors (e.g., cold rain, thick 

mosquitoes, raiding bands). Like other animals, people responded to this spatial and 

temporal heterogeneity by selecting a few places for long-term occupation while avoiding 

others. 

Canaan Valley lies in the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau subdivision of the 

Appalachian plateau physiographic province (Cremeens and Lothrop 2001). In such a 

region of steep-sided valleys, narrow valley bottoms, and plateau tops, the only habitable 

areas are stream valleys, benches, rock shelters, and ridgetops (Hasenstab and Johnson 

2001). 

An area with a floodplain, tributaries, and terraces, like along the Cheat River, 

seems to have represented an optimal habitat for prehistoric people (Gardner 1983, Fagan 

2000). In contrast, people may have perceived Canaan Valley as sub-optimal. The 

Valley's high elevation dictated cool air temperatures and a short growing season; its 

concave form and heavy precipitation supported a high water table and extensive 

wetlands; its tangled understory was hard to move through; the humid forest was too fireresistant 

to create ecotones for game species and sight lines for defense; and its rock 

outcrops offered no lithic sources. 

A second factor in Canaan Valley's slight use may have been its distance from 

population centers. Located in the mountainous interior away from primary trails (sensu 

Lane and Anderson 2001), Canaan Valley was a day's hike (about 20 straight-line km) 

from settlements in the Cheat and South Branch Potomac floodplains. 

A third reason for the Valley's low inhabitance is that prehistoric people may have 

rejected the "feel" of Canaan Valley. In many animals, innate predispositions (e.g., 

Partridge 1974) and juvenile experiences (e.g., Wecker 1964) are important in forming 

adult habitat preferences. Perhaps innate factors provide the coarse tuning and learned 

factors the fine tuning in habitat selection. Young adult hunter-gatherers, raised in semiopen 

floodplain villages, may have disfavored Canaan Valley's thick structure and dark 

appearance. Perhaps they favored open woodland, i.e., a savannah-like habitat similar to 

that of our species' African origins. 

Even though prehistoric people may have shunned Canaan Valley for several 

reasons, the broad regional trends and specific local findings indicate they were in the 

Valley at least for brief visits. Why were they there at all? 

How prehistoric people used space can be viewed at several temporal scales. 

Annually, groups of people may have followed flushes of food, occupying a series of 

sites, each for an extended (e.g., 1-2 months) period. At the daily scale, people may have 

left their long-term, but possibly overexploited settled areas, hiked to distant places to 

hunt and gather, and then returned quickly (e.g., 1-2 days) with a load. 

Annual migrations 

Along the Shenandoah River in northern Virginia, the Flint Run complex was 

intermittently occupied by Clovis people after 11,500 YBP; the site then exhibits a 

cultural continuum from Paleo-Indian into the Archaic (Gardner 1974, 1977, 1986). This 

floodplain base camp included living areas with favorable wind and sun, and a place 

where local jasper was fashioned into tools. 

9

Within the Flint Run complex, the Thunderbird site was a central base for mobile 

Paleo-Indians hunting throughout a broad range and then returning to the same location. 

Prime hunting areas, lithic resource zones, and plant collecting areas were periodically 

revisited. Jasper was abundant at nearby quarry sites. Away from quarry and base sites, 

the population dropped sharply. This pattern of space use has been called a “centrallybased 

wandering” model. Applying this model, Canaan Valley may have served as one in 

a series of outlying foraging and hunting areas visited along an annual route. 

From an ecological point of view, such seasonal rounds are a form of migration, a 

type of behavior that allows organisms to exploit temporary resources and avoid seasonal 

constraints (Ricklefs 1990). One type of migration, to-and-fro migration (Dingle 1996), 

may be most relevant. The mule deer, for example, moves annually from high-elevation 

summer ranges to lower winter ranges with shallower snow. This kind of migration may 

assume circular or quasi-circular patterns with stops at several sites, each to exploit 

seasonally available foods. To-and-fro migration, in which individuals learn to follow 

routes that have been used over many generations, includes both lateral and vertical 

movements. 

In an ultimate evolutionary sense, an animal migrates because such movements 

have contributed to the reproductive success of its ancestors in environments that varied 

over space and time. One way to understand the adaptive significance of migration is 

through cost-benefit analysis (Dingle 1996). Assuming the unit of measurement is the 

number of offspring that in turn reproduce, if the benefit/cost (b/c) of moving > b/c of 

staying, migration will be favored by natural selection. A favorable b/c may occur if 

there are seasonal differences in resources, e.g., bursts of food at high elevations in late 

spring. 

At the proximal level, people may have been stimulated to migrate by various 

environmental cues, including day length, temperature regime, and leaf-drop. Such 

external signs may have triggered internal hormonal changes, which in turn may have 

caused fat deposition and/or restlessness. During long-distance migratory movements, 

people may have oriented by using natural landmarks like astronomical patterns, 

mountain ridges, and streams; man-made rock cairns and slashes on trees; and 

intracellular magnetic compasses in their brains. 

From an evolutionary archeology point of view (Dancey 2001), it is possible only 

some group members migrated. Prehistoric people may have exhibited partial migration 

(Dingle 1996), in which only some moved to the uplands while the rest stayed in the 

valley settlement. Who did the migrating may have been influenced by genes, age, sex, or 

rank. For example, older dominant men may have been more sedentary than younger 

subordinates. 

Central-place Foraging 

Another way prehistoric people may have used Canaan Valley is that they visited there 

for brief stays of a day or two to hunt and gather in ways that maximized their net energy 

intake. Optimal foraging maximizes net profit, i.e., benefits minus costs (Pianka 1994). 

Optimal foraging theory assumes that individuals maximizing their net energy gain leave 

more descendants on average than less efficient individuals (Pyke et al. 1977). In an 

optimal feeding model, the animal travels just far enough to supply its energy needs 

(Schoenher 1971). 

10

The ultimate currency for measuring optimal solutions is the number of offspring 

that in turn reproduce (Alcock 1984). In a more proximal sense, benefits can be measured 

in net gains of matter and energy, and costs can be measured in losses to predators, travel 

time not available for other tasks, and the load weight (Krebs and Davies 1987). 

Assuming prehistoric people in the Mid-Atlantic highlands gathered food optimally 

(sensu Dunham 1996); village-based hunting-gathering may have taken the form of 

central-place foraging. In this kind of space use, food is acquired distantly and loads are 

returned to a central site (Wetterer 1989). According to the central-place foraging model, 

when travel time is shorter, the load that maximizes profit is smaller; conversely load size 

should increase with distance (Krebs and Davies 1987). Prehistoric people would not 

have hiked from Horseshoe Bend to Canaan Valley for a pouch of snowshoe hares; they 

intended to haul out large packages of energy, e.g., carcasses. 

It is appropriate that a Woodland contemporary, the beaver, conforms to some 

predictions of central-place foraging theory. Beavers cut a smaller range of tree sizes 

(i.e., are increasingly selective) farther from their ponds (Jenkins 1980, Fryxell and 

Doucet 1991). 

The hypotheses of annual migration and central-place foraging are not mutually 

exclusive. It is possible that migrants moved through a series of extended-stay camps, 

from which central-place foraging was conducted daily. 

This leads me to summarize a general ecological theory of prehistoric peoples' use 

of Canaan Valley. Most people most of the time lived in the optimal habitats of major 

river valleys. Because it was sub-optimal habitat, they only occasionally visited Canaan 

Valley. When they did use the Valley, it was as a stop along an annual migration and/or 

for central-place hunting of large-bodied game. Proximal reasons for low visitation 

included behavioral avoidance and long distances from population centers. 

Specific hypotheses 

The general model suggests 15 testable hypotheses. Under either the migration or centralplace 

scenario, Canaan Valley: 

1. offered only a few kinds or low densities of valued resources; 

2. started to be used after optimal habitats (e.g., river valleys) were taken; 

3. will yield no artifacts of long-term occupation, e.g., permanent dwellings, 

gardens; and 

4. was used during the most optimal times of the year, e.g., early summer. 

Although annual migration and central-place foraging may be complementary, each 

behavior generates the following hypotheses that could allow rejection of either scenario. 

The former implies longer (e.g., 1-2 months) stays than the latter (e.g., 1-2 days). 

Annual migration – Canaan Valley: 

5. was used for many days (e.g., 30-60) at the same season each year; 

6. will yield toolkits composed of some heavy items; 

7. will reveal repeated-use hearths; and 

8. provided diverse, but low-density plant and animal foods. 

11

Central-place foraging – Canaan Valley: 

9. provided large-bodied prey (e.g., deer, elk, bison) that were carried back 

to permanent villages; small food items (e.g., nuts, brook trout, 

hares) were eaten on site; 

10. hosted brief (e.g., 1-2 days) visits after which users returned to more 

permanent camps; 

11. will yield few tools; if found, toolkits were made of traveling items; 

12. will yield debitage reflecting on-the-go tool maintenance, and with no 

re-use potential; 

13. was used by non-established individuals, e.g., young males; 

14. contains few or no hearths; if found, hearths were single-use; and 

15. contains few or no prehistoric burials; if found, burial sites contain no or 

few artifacts associated with long-term settlements. 

Testing hypotheses 5-15 will help us determine whether Canaan Valley was occupied as 

a camp along an annual migration, briefly while central-place foraging, or both. My 

subjective ecological judgment leads me to prefer the central-place foraging hypothesis. 

Most of these hypotheses are testable with current archeological methods; one (13) must 

await new techniques. In broad outline, my general model is consistent with Neumann’s 

(1992) partitioning of 205 South Branch Potomac sites into two clusters: (1) large, low 

drainage/low elevation sites and (2) small, high drainage/high elevation sites. To the 

extent this paper stimulates hypothetico-deductive tests of the general theory, I will 

consider it a success. 

Comparisons with Modern Humans 

I close with a sociobiological resolution of an apparent paradox. 

The literatures of aboriginal ethics and spirituality convey themes like "respect for 

the environment" and "intimate connection to the land." Their oral traditions seem 

consistent. In Cherokee myth, an animal killed by a hunter after use of a chant would 

come to life again, thereby avoiding the decline of game. Leaders felt responsible for 7 

generations into the future (Shenandoah 1992). "The frog does not drink up the pond in 

which he lives." 

Several modern scholars agree. Prehistoric Americans had a conservation ethic 

(Noss and Cooperrider 1994) that included a holistic respect for nature (Rockefeller and 

Elder 1992). The typical traditional American Indian attitude was to regard all parts of 

the environment as enspirited, i.e., with consciousness, reason, and volition (Callicott 

1989). Rocks, trees, and insects had personalities as fully as people. 

Yet several lines of evidence suggest that Native Americans degraded their 

environment. In the East, they slashed and burned forests to create canopy gaps for 

growing crops, and then depleted soils until decreasing yields pushed them elsewhere 

(Krech 1999). Fuel was exhausted, game became scarce. Like Indians in other parts of 

North America (Botkin 1995), Cherokees practiced periodic burning of the forest (Silver 

1996) to drive and kill deer, open travel corridors, and create open security zones where 

enemies could be detected; but sometimes they kindled destructive fires. Today, tribal 

governments sometimes favor resource extraction and other development projects even if 

they are projected to have serious environmental impacts (Krech 1999). 

12

How do we reconcile Native Americans' (a) respect for the environment, 

conservation ethic, and keen sense of interdependence; with their (b) depleting soils, over 

hunting game, and setting destructive fires? If we accept the proposition that the 

evolutionary processes of natural selection, and its extensions of sexual and kin selection, 

have functioned similarly in people of all times (Wilson 1975, Trivers 1985), then 

prehistoric and modern Canaan Valleyans have had the same basic needs, motives, and 

responses. In humanistic terms, we have been similarly contradicted–with differences 

among individuals within groups, and with inconsistencies within each of us expressed at 

different times. We have been hypocritical, short-sighted, and selfish; and also helpful, 

far-sighted, and altruistic. Perhaps they were no better or worse than the average person 

today. 

Acknowledgements 

I have been helped by many generous people. Lee Avery, Ruth Brinker, John Calabrese, 

Bob Hoffman, Hunter Lesser, David Matchen, Dewey Sanderson, and Tom Wynn shared 

scientific insights. Doug Wood helped to map the trails. Friends at CVI, including Kip 

Ambro, Beverli Badgley, Ryan Gaujot, Cindy Phillips, Ron Preston, Matt Sherald, 

Jocelyn Smith, Ron Wigal, Paula Worden, and especially Ellen Voss, helped in various 

ways. Leah Constantz, MAAR Associates, and Bob Maslowski provided literature. 

Nancy Ailes, Jim Rawson, and two anonymous reviewers criticized the manuscript. 

Thanks to all. 

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Figure 1. Floodplains and possible chert sources near Canaan Valley 

Figure 2. Trails potentially used by prehistoric people of the Canaan Valley area 

Figure 3. Archeological sites relevant to interpreting the prehistory of Canaan 

Valley 

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1 PREHISTORY OF CANAAN VALLEY: AN ECOLOGICAL VIEW ...

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