The Somerset County relief excavations were conducted with limited funds and by people who were not professional archaeologists. However, field methodology and data recording procedures used during the Somerset County relief excavations are not that dissimilar to techniques applied to the excavation of Monongahela villages today. Limitations in the field data result more from the lack of consistency and completeness in data recording than in the actual field methodology employed. It was possible to use the WPA field data to create a much stronger description and interpretation of the Peck No. 1 (36 SO 1) and Peck No. 2 (36 SO 8) village sites than was presented in the original descriptive report on these sites (Augustine 1938d).
A major limitation in using the Somerset County relief excavation data is that the sites were investigated prior to the advent of radiocarbon dating. Village sites may eventually be placed within a broad local chronology for Somerset County by seriating them based on the timing certain architectural features (such as attached and unattached storage pits) were adopted. The possibility of obtaining radiocarbon assays using organic remains from the Peck sites, which are located in museum collections, is also being pursued by the author.
Despite limitations of the Somerset County relief
excavations, significant results were obtained that still influence the interpretation
of prehistory in southwestern Pennsylvania. Hart (1993:88) pointed out that
the Somerset County relief excavations are important to a continuing understanding
of the Monongahela culture, since these excavations exposed more habitation
area of more village sites than has been done since. Thus, records of the
Somerset County relief excavations are an important resource for the examination
of Monongahela community patterns, such as the relationship of houses with
respect to each other, and to the palisade, the central plaza, burial features,
hearths, post-enclosed pits and other features. This paper demonstrates the
potential value that data gleaned from a re-examination of correspondence,
field notes, and unpublished manuscripts associated with the Somerset County
relief excavations can have for contemporary interpretations of the past.
This paper also indicates that Depression-era archaeological investigations
in other parts of the United States should not be viewed simply as curious
episodes in the history of American archaeology, but as potential sources
of valuable archaeological data.
First appeared in Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology 14:39-63.
Original copyright 1998. Reprinted with permission from Archaeological
Services.
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