As part of the 1934 CWA survey of Somerset County, Flora Black reported the village remains on the Jacob Peck Fairfield Farm near the Borough of Meyersdale. The Peck family referred to this part of their farm as "Indian Field" (Augustine and Butler 1936:3). Two separate field excavations were conducted between 1936 and 1937 to excavate these village sites: Peck No. 1 (36 SO 1) and Peck No. 2 (36 SO 8). A re-examination of community pattern data at the Peck sites demonstrate that excavation data from relief archaeological projects can make an important contribution to modem archaeological interpretations, as long as a certain degree of caution is exercised.
Peck No. 1 (36 SO 1)
The WPA archaeological crew began excavation of
the Peck No. 1 (36 SO 1) site on October 13, 1936. Work continued through
the winter on this village site and was completed on January 29, 1937 (Augustine
1938d:84). The layout of Peck No. 1 shows two episodes of expansion and a
number of repairs to the palisade (Figure 11) (Cresson
n.d.). Both expansion episodes at Peck No. 1 indicate settlement growth through
the addition of population. It is not clear whether this additional population
came from another village or from several scattered hamlets within the region.
Ethnographic information for the Iroquois show that people who sought admission
to a village community built their structures outside the palisade walls.
When the people were accepted into the village community, the palisade wall
was extended around them (Bamann et al. 1992:439). This may be the
situation at Peck No. 1. Though the village was enlarged twice, the plaza
area did not shift its location to remain central to the village layout.
Augustine (1936/7) noted that "From a maze of post holes it was possible to trace the outlines of 38 bark houses in addition to the palisades surrounding the village." Augustine's house total refers only to the number of dwellings located within the palisade walls. A thirty-ninth circular or oval house was clearly located outside the village palisades. While Cresson's (n.d.) map of Peck No. 1 does not show this house, this structure is clearly mentioned in Augustine's (1938d) published report on this site. The approximate shape and location of the house was determined when the four recorded post locations along the house's perimeter were plotted on Cresson's (n.d.) site map (Figure 11).
All but three of the houses were circular to oval (Figure 11). The one triangular house and the two rectangular houses were dismissed by Cresson (n.d.:30) as fortuitous alignments of postmold patterns by the WPA excavators. It is not possible to evaluate the veracity of these three structures, since postmolds were only recorded when they were thought to be associated with structural features, and only select postmold locations along the perimeter of a structure were recorded at Peck No. 1. However, some postmold patterns at the nearby Gnagey No. 3 site have been interpreted as representing square houses.
One hundred and twenty-nine features were located at the site and were assigned fire, refuse and storage functions by the WPA field workers. Information on pit content, dimensions, and location for Peck No. 1 is available from original field notes (Augustine 1936/7), though this information is not consistently recorded. Only six of 129 features had either their plan or profile recorded.
A review of field records (Augustine 1936/7) from Peck No. 1 indicates the existence of seven definite free-standing post-enclosed features: Features 27, 48, 70, 74, 104, 116, and 119. Feature 19 is a possible post-enclosed feature that does not have a correlate on Cresson's (n.d.) site map. None of these post-enclosed features was attached to dwellings. Feature 82 was the only hearth defined at Peck No. 1 by the WPA excavators. An arc of postmolds, likely a windbreak, partly surrounds Feature 82 and is attached to House 21. Pits that contained charcoal and ash suggest the existence of other fire-related features at Peck No. 1. Feature 45 was the only stone-lined, cylindrical pit feature documented at Peck No. 1. The presence of burned bone and the stone lining of the feature indicate that Feature 45 probably functioned as a roasting pit.
Four definite burials and one possible burial were encountered at Peck No. 1. The possible burial consisted of a pit that contained a complete pottery vessel but no skeletal material. The excavators concluded that the pottery vessel
...was probably associated with a burial but it was impossible to definitely locate any part of the skeleton or teeth. The characteristics of the soil stain indicated the presence of a burial and the position of the vessel, resting on its side near the eastern end of the stain indicated that it was placed near the head of a skeleton (Augustine 1936/7).None of the burial features with skeletal material had associated cultural remains. The skeletal material in the other four burials was considered too decomposed for meaningful study of the human remains. Photographs of the burials on file at The State Museum of Pennsylvania suggest that preservation of some skeletal material was not as poor as the excavators suggested. The four human burials with skeletal remains included one adult, two children, and one individual whose age was not identified (Augustine 1936/7). The adult individual in Burial 4 was placed in a flexed position. The burials were not identified according to sex. The only skeletal remains recovered within a house were those of the child represented by Burial 1. No patterning is discernible in the distribution of the burial features at Peck No. 1 due to their small quantity, though Burials 2 and 4 are located adjacent to one another.
Artifacts recovered from Peck No. 1 included ceramic
vessel fragments, scrapers, bird bone beads, bone awls, clay and stone tobacco
pipes, and several triangular and notched projectile points (Augustine 19384:84-85).
Fortunately, while excavating the Gnagey No. 3 site, some artifacts from
Peck No. 1 and Peck No. 2, still in their original bags, were given to George
by a local farmer (George 1983:65). While these bags clearly do not encompass
all of the excavated material from the two Peck sites, an analysis of their
contents provided important information. The feature and artifact types documented
by the WPA and the re-analysis of artifacts by George (1983:66) support the
existence of a predominately Late Prehistoric Monongahela occupation at this
site.
First appeared in Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology 14:39-63.
Original copyright 1998. Reprinted with permission from Archaeological
Services.
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