This week we travel to Dauphin County for a tour of
some of its archaeological sites located on various stretches of the
Susquehanna River. Dauphin County is located within the Susquehanna Lowland
Section of the Ridge and Valley physiographic province. This region along the Susquehanna River is
defined by narrow, small, steep-sided stream valleys making it susceptible to
flooding. The forested areas present today consist of white and red oak, sugar
maple, ash, beech and walnut, which have provided resources for both humans and
animals during the prehistoric period. Archaeologists
have been able to research the pollens found in soils along the Susquehanna
River in deeply buried soil horizons, providing us with a better understanding
of the paleoenvironment.
We begin our tour at Clemson Island site (36Da1) located
across the river from Halifax, where the Clemson Island burial mound once
existed on the island’s broad fertile floodplain. Unfortunately, the site is
now gone, eradicated by repeated plowing and the construction of several water
ponds that the Game Commission placed for the propagation and management of
wildlife.
Map of Clemson Mound excavation
In 1929, the Pennsylvania Historical Commission
explored the mound or burial location of a small group of prehistoric people who
lived more than a thousand years ago. Jones unearthed the remains of as many as 19
individuals buried at various locations within the earth and rock filled mound.
The remains were generally poorly
preserved but enough remained of them to form a pattern of burial. At the base
of, and immediately beneath the mound, abundant charcoal, animal bones, pottery
and flint debris remaining from making stone tools were associated with some of
the burials. Four burial types were
noted and classified according to the position and arrangement of each bone.
These included single disarticulated skeletons, multiple articulated skeletons,
cremations and semi-flexed articulated skeletons. Description was often
hindered by the co-mingled nature of interment where some of the skeletons
appeared to be laying on top of others. Cobbles and stone slabs found
interspersed among the remains were likely used as covers to protect some of
the dead whereas others were simply placed in isolated locations inside the
mound.
Exterior Clemson pottery sherd
Interior Clemson pottery sherd
Few diagnostic artifacts were found in and around
the base of the mound. The stone artifacts included four arrowpoints made from
rhyolite and local chert, a notched net-sinker and a pitted hammerstone.
Pottery was of the Clemson Island punctuate and non-punctate varieties that is
ascribed to the early Late Woodland period (AD.900-1100). These pottery types
are most common in the West Branch of the Susquehanna and Juniata River valleys
of central Pennsylvania.
Moving on down the river, our next stop is a visit
to City Island, home of the Harrisburg Senators Baseball Team. From 1994 to
2000 the island was an archaeological attraction annually during the months of
September and October. The public and professionals visited and participated in
the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s annual archaeology program
on City Island.
City Island excavation
Our activities focused on an area of the parking lot
on the north side of City Island (site 36Da12). Two excavations were opened in
the general area where previous cultural resource studies identified a series
of buried soil horizons containing living surfaces of Late Archaic and
Transitional Period age. These prehistoric living surfaces were re-identified
during the 1994-2000 excavations and served to extend the site boundaries, horizontally
as well as, vertically.
The Late Archaic and Transitional living surfaces
contained hearths and cobble features indicative of seasonal habitation. Some
of the hearths and cobbled bake ovens yielded remains of nut hulls and charcoal
and an occasional diagnostic projectile point or knife blade. The dominant
lithic material used by both prehistoric cultures was metarhyolite brought to
the island from the quarries 30-40 miles distant.
Recording elevation at City Island
Going deeper, a thick deposit of sterile clay loam separated
the Late Archaic and Transitional levels from a Middle Archaic period land
surface identified by several 8000 year old radiocarbon dates and a diagnostic
bifurcate projectile point made from a fine grained brown jasper whose probable
source is the Hardyston Formation in the Berks, Lehigh and Bucks county region
of southeastern Pennsylvania.
Calver Island excavation with feature
From City Island we travel a short distance down
river where the Pennsylvania Turnpike crosses the Susquehanna River at
Highspire, Pennsylvania. Structural pylons for the recently built bridge that
now replaces an older outdated one were to be set on a section of the Calver
Island site (36Da89) thereby impacting potentially important archaeological
resources. Under contract with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission,
archaeologists with KCI Technologies, Inc., opened several block excavations in
the immediate area of potential effect (APE).
Calver Island projectile points in situ
Calver Island is a remarkable prehistoric site. As
with City Island, it is a stratified site with prehistoric occupations present
in multiple discrete buried soil horizons, the ages of which spans the period
between 2600 and 5200 years before present. To date, Calver Island has the best
intact stratigraphic record of Late to Middle Archaic period occupations in
Dauphin County.
Calver Island had features similar to those
identified at City Island but many more were found there. Transitional period
roasting hearths, cobble platforms and charcoal stained basin-shaped pits were
among the feature types found there and these seem to have persisted at the
site through time.
Calver Island broadspears and fishtails
The large compliment and variety of diagnostic
projectile points and knives from Calver Island provides us with a glimpse of
the lithic assemblage from these river island sites. Large wide-based bifaces
are of the Koens Crispin, Savanna River and Susquehanna broadspear types of
Hardyston quartzite, local hornfels and metarhyolite. These date to the
Transitional period. Narrower shaped points also of metarhyolite and hornfels
and diabase are believed to be of Late Archaic and possibly Early Woodland age.
Interestingly, the broadspears and
narrow stemmed points were frequently found in the same levels suggesting they
were used by the same people, possibly for different functions. Some of these projectile
point types appear to go along with atlatl weights and some of the early
pottery at Calver Island. Although there were a few triangles of quartz and
chert their association could not be determined stratigraphically since they
came from Calver Island’s plowzone.
We
hope you have enjoyed the “Island tour” of archaeology down Dauphin County’s western
border and that it inspires you to learn
more about the archaeology of your county. These resources are Pennsylvania’s
heritage and for all of us it is our window into the past. Please help us preserve
these important resources by reporting and recording your archaeological finds
while we all Preserve our Past for the Future. (link to GIS web site)
Kent,
Barry C.,Ira F. Smith III, Catherine McCann
Foundations
of Pennsylvania Prehistory, Harrisburg: Anthropological Series of the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Number 1, 1971.
Miller,
Patricia E. Ph.D., Frank J. Vento, Ph.D., James T. Marine
Susquehanna
River Bridge Replacement Project, Dauphin and York Counties, Pennsylvania.
Phase I/II/III Archaeological Investigations at site 36Da89 on Calver
Island,KCI Technologies, February 2007.
For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .
