1999 Pennsylvania Archaeologist 69(1):1-100
Prehistoric Occupations at Fishbasket
Kenneth Burkett

Excavations from 1977 to 1992 at two neighboring sites along the Redbank Creek in Clarion and Armstrong counties uncovered a locally unique series of intense Late Woodland multi-occupations. This paper presents a detailed examination of the settlement patterns and artifact assemblage associated with these villages, while introducing regional cultural comparisons.
 

Lithic artifact caches from the destroyed Blawnox site, 36AL19, located on the lower Allegheny River, are described. One of the caches included Early Woodland contracting stemmed points and an irregular-shaped grooved tablet. The second cache, containing preforms and a hammerstone, is not assignable to a prehistoric period because of the lack of diagnostics. The importance of museum curated artifacts and associated documentation is emphasized by a report like this that relies on such sources.
 

Since the 1930s, systematic archaeological excavations at Monongahela sites have uncovered a large number of burial features and a few instances of isolated human remains. Despite the large number of burials, Monongahela mortuary studies remain in their in fancy. Previous attempts to categorize Monongahela mortuary behavior have rested on generalities about Monongahela burial data, thus masking important variability within and between different sites. This paper offers a preliminary examination of Monongahela mortuary behavior by analyzing burial data from Monongahela sites in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, the majority of which were excavated as part of federal relief projects between October, 1934 and June, 1940. Some differences observed in mortuary practices will be linked provisionally to aspects of village­ level social organization and to changes in the Somerset Monongahela cultural developmental sequence.
 

This paper expands on the article, "Wyoming Valley Landscape Evolution and the Emergence of the Wyoming Valley Culture" previously published in the Pennsylvania Archaeologist (Volume 68, Number 2). It elaborates on some cultural historical interpretations of local cultures and suggests how geoarchaeological studies could be more thoroughly integrated into archaeological research.