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

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.
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