Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Modeling Somerset Monongahela Village Organization Within a Chronological Framework Developed Through AMS Dating of Curated Organic Remains

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support, Mr. Bernard K. Means will determine the ages of a dozen American Indian village sites located in the rugged Allegheny Mountains region of southwestern Pennsylvania. The American Indian farmers who built and lived in these villages vanished long before the first Europeans settled this area. How these people maintained vital and vibrant farming communities in this sometime hostile terrain, and for how many centuries, remain mysteries. Direct knowledge of their ring-shaped village communities-which consisted of a ring of houses built around a central open plaza-is limited to what can be determined through archeological research. Most of these villages were excavated by federally-funded work relief projects during the Great Depression. Mr. Means has examined records and artifacts from these 1930s excavations in museum collections. He found that these Depression-era archeologists used relatively modern techniques that compare favorably to those used today. Dr. Carr and Mr. Means will use their combined expertise in modern archeological techniques and scientific tools to build on the legacy of these earlier village excavations. Site maps for these ring-shaped villages will be examined using new anthropological models and computer-assisted spatial analysis to address a number of questions: 1. Did villagers arrange their houses to enhance cooperation and minimize conflicts? 2. Did families work independently while farming or did some families regularly combine their efforts? 3. Did families gather into clan-like groups that each owned part of a village? 4. Was each village separated into two larger social divisions that perhaps competed in games, performed group ceremonies, and buried each other's dead? 5. Were later villages more efficiently planned, reflecting lessons learned by earlier generations of villagers? These questions cannot be answered without knowing the ages of the village sites. With National Science Foundation funding, each village site will be dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) applied to the burned remains of past meals discovered still clinging to pottery-vessel fragments found by Mr. Means in museum collections. This research is important for several reasons. It will help archaeologists working in the Northeastern U.S. to understand the changing relationships between village lifeways and farming. There is a tenuous understanding throughout the region regarding the timing of the first appearance of farming villages and what material and social changes resulted. This research will also demonstrate that new concepts and methods can be applied to stored museum collections to answer questions undreamt of by their original excavators. This will generate a greater understanding of the past and highlight the importance of maintaining collections for future study.