The 1973-4 salvage excavation of the Murphy's Old House site, located on an Allegheny River terrace in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, uncovered evidence of long prehistoric and historic utilization. Although settlement patterns had been disturbed by various agencies, excavation data nonetheless identified several prehistoric components, including three Late Prehistoric occupations. One Late Prehistoric occupation, dated by radiocarbon assays, represents an unrecognized Early Monongahela horizon that produced pottery decorated with punctations, herein named Murphy Punctate. Artifacts, especially pottery sherds that are the remains of a Middle Monongahela Drew-Two occupation and a Mead Island presence, are described and illustrated. Analysis of biological and botanical remains provides subsistence data that reflect the riverine environment of the site.
 

The recent completion of a comprehensive exploration and reevaluation of the Parkers Landing Petroglyphs has identified a large number of previously unknown and unrecorded figures. As a result of this investigation, Parkers Landing is now recognized as the most intensively utilized rock art location known within the Upper Ohio River basin. The considerable quantity, variable styles, and assortment of figures suggest its formation and use extended over a long period of time, possibly beginning in the Early or Middle Woodland periods and extending into the late 18th or early 19th century. This paper presents an updated review of this important site and discusses its figural groupings, site utilization, and apparent relationships to other regional rock art locations.
 

An accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analytical project implemented by the author has successfully dated several Monongahela village components that were excavated as "New Deal" Depression-era work relief projects in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and re-dated one site investigated in the 1970s. The new AMS assays have literally rewritten the occupational history of the Allegheny Mountain section of the Appalachian Plateaus physiographic province. The results indicate that American Indians first formed village communities more recently than once thought, at around A.D. 1100 and not at A.D. 900 as previously suggested. Traditional scholarship suggested that the Somerset County region was abandoned by the mid-13th century A.D. Instead, this project demonstrates that village communities were inhabited well into the 16th century A.D.
 

In 1 995, an unusual "portable" petroglyph was recovered from a refuse pit during controlled excavations at the Norman Cullison Site, a late protohistoric village in north central Ohio. The human form in the petroglyph seems to display all the classic features of an Iroquois warrior (roached haircut, body painting/tattooing, war club, and shield). It was initially hypothesized that the petroglyph might represent an actual pictorial record of an Iroquoian incursion into north central Ohio - a literal portrait of the enemy. Subsequent analysis, however, has shown that each of the classic traits usually associated with Iroquoian warriors was also widely utilized by other native peoples throughout the Eastern Woodlands during the protohistoric period, making positive identification of the warrior highly unlikely.