GIS in Predicting Native American Horticulture Sites in the Allegheny National Forest

The Allegheny River Basin is widely known for containing many Native American occupation sites along the river’s banks and valleys throughout western Pennsylvania. The river was a main travel route, acting like a major interstate, for various bands of tribes that inhabited northwestern Pennsylvania and the Finger Lakes area of New York.

This poster presents a project that involved the use of multiple data sets to represent site characterizations for Native American horticulture, specifically corn production. The location and characteristics of such sites can be identified by specific conditions such as soil suitable for agriculture and landform properties such as slope and orientation of land surface (i.e., aspect). Pinpointing those sites could lead to the discovery of occupation zones such as villages and/or smaller residential agglomerations, which usually are located in proximity to the agricultural fields. Potential rock shelters were also included in the analysis of the potential locations for future archaeological excavation.

Data was collected and compiled for areas within four miles from the Allegheny River and reclassified to represent soils suitable for corn production, relatively flat areas, and regions that face south. Raster modeling was carried out to overlay the reclassified soil, slope, and aspect maps, and attributes were queried for different combinations of site conditions. Many regions were identified as potential corn production sites, and possible rock shelters were extracted from a surface geology map. They were buffered and intersected with the previously identified sites, and the resulting polygons were recognized to be the most probable locations for future archaeological excavation.

Although further field tests were not carried out to confirm the results, the findings of the current study coincided with existing archaeological sites in the West Hickory region, located south of the study area. This study demonstrates that GIS modeling is a promising tool for archaeologists especially if it is strengthened with field investigations and integrated with the results of site characterization of existing excavations.