NYSAA Bulletin No. 52 — Archaic Sites: Croton Point & Dogan Point — Passage 21

[Various (1971)] ECOLOGY OF THE SITE The ecology of this site is presently under investigation. Soil samples were collected from many of the features. These are being processed by water flotation. The result is a sample of the seed material which will be analyzed in order to determine, if possible, the seasonality and ecology of the site, and presence of domesticated plants. Agriculture is assumed to have been the dominant exploitive technique, charred kernels of corn and squash seeds having been present in at least one feature. An analysis of the fauna is more difficult to undertake since bone preservation is so poor, and none of the fragments recovered are large enough to be identified. There is evidence that mollusks may have been an important dietary item, since many of the features contained flecks of decomposed shell, but none are sufficient for identification.

The lack of netsinkers (previously mentioned) probably indicates that fishing was not an important exploitive technique or that fishing technology did not include netting. Tentative analysis indicates that this was primarily a summer farming community. No. 52, July 1971 37 CONCLUSIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS The temporal and spatial articulation between Witchs Walk and other archaeological components is based on a review of the current literature. Two reports have been released by the Carnegie Museum on related sites which have been excavated further down river in the Allegheny River Basin (Dragoo 1966, 1967).