NYSAA Bulletin No. 52 — Archaic Sites: Croton Point & Dogan Point — Passage 3 (part 3)

[Various (1971)] Ritchie, State Archeologist, NYSAAF New York State Museum and Science Service The purpose of this paper is to restate, for greater clarity and emphasis, my current views regarding the major configuration of the Archaic stage in New York State, as published more fully in my 1965a and particularly in my 1969a volume. The Archaic stage en compassed by far the longest temporal segment of the area's prehistory, on present evidence at least 5000 years. Since 1932 when, following my discoveries at Lamoka Lake site, I defined the Lamoka culture and attributed it to a preceramic, pre-horticultural Archaic level of Indian history in New York, the magnitude, complexity, and antiquity of the Archaic stage have slowly been realized through professional and non-professional excavations in many parts of the state (Ritchie 1932, 1936, 1938); and the concept of the Archaic and its multifarious manifestations have also been accepted and widely extended in the United States and Canada (Willey and Phillips 1958: 104-139; Willey 1966: 252-266; Jennings 1968: 114-130).

The most recently revealed traces of the Archaic are also the most ancient. Until these finds were made on Staten Island by a small corps of non-professional archeologists, beginning about 1968, evidence for an Early Archaic occupation of the eastern United States was confined to the region well south of New York. The Staten Island data come principally from four sites explored by Albert J.