Archaeological dig unearths ancient Schoharie Valley history

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July 9, 2012

Archaeological dig unearths ancient Schoharie Valley history

By JOE MAHONEY Staff Writer The Daily Star Mon Jul 09, 2012, 03:30 AM EDT

An ongoing archaeological dig in the Schoharie County community of Central Bridge is opening a window to the lives of the region's earliest known settlers and giving researchers a trove of clues about their lifestyles and travel patterns.

"It is actually producing a lot of material that is providing us with information on how the people of the Schoharie Valley and (what is now) eastern New York subsisted and what the settlements were like," archaeologist Christina Rieth of the New York State museum said.

The site of the dig is on a privately owned field off Smith Road. It is on what Rieth described as a slightly elevated terrace overlooking a flood plain, perhaps suggesting that the Native American inhabitants wanted to avoid high waters in the event of flooding.

Rieth said the evidence gathered shows the site has had "multiple occupations" that date as far back as 4,000 B.C. and continued to the point when immigrants from Europe moved into the region. She said such sites are likely sprinkled throughout the Schoharie and Susquehanna valleys.

Among items located during the dig in Central Bridge, she said, are numerous projectiles fashioned from Pennsylvania Jasper, a stone not native to the immediate area. She said the yellowish stone "would have been prized by Native Americans for stone tool manufacturing." Its location in Central Bridge is also evidence the early settlers moved around on occasion.

There are also remnants of longhouses, fire hearths and cord-marked pottery, suggesting that they may have stayed in the location for much of the year, the veteran archaeologist said.

The site is now in its eighth year of exploration. On Friday, Rieth, along with State University at Albany associate professor Sean Rafferty and 16 students from that campus' archaeology department, played hosts to an open house so the public could get a first-hand glimpse of the ongoing research.

The students have been cataloging the artifacts, which will be kept as part of the State Museum's collections in Albany.

"Archaeology is very different discipline than what was portrayed in the movie 'Indiana Jones,'" Rieth said. "Quite often the public has the perception that you go out and just start digging." She said significant laboratory work is also part of archaeological research, as are planning and meticulous record-keeping.