Page 145 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

TABLE 1 — Attributes of Late Woodland settlement types, after Strickland (2012).
Typology
Attributes
Villages/Towns
Strong association with proximity to shore
Low elevations
High potential crop yields
Within close proximity to the most productive soils for corn
Base Camps
Close proximity to shore but with a longer range
Range of elevations for its shore proximity
No observed correlations to tested soil attributes
Hamlets
Close proximity to the shore
Higher elevations than villages, but not a longer range
Range of different soil productivity attributes
Close proximity to villages and base camps
Short-term Camps/ Procurement
Close proximity to shore but with a longer range
Range of elevations for its shore proximity
Slight association with agriculturally productive soil types
Range of travel times from villages and base camps, but still clustered with them
viewshed analysis to explore settlement choices for the Onondaga Iroquois in New York on sites dating from about AD 1500 to 1700. Jones’ ob- jective was to demonstrate whether settlements were visible from one another, a concept known as intervisibility. The results of this study revealed that recorded Onondaga archaeological sites did display a degree of intervisibility, although the explanation for this phenomenon is a bit more complicated. Jones concluded that intervisibility of settlement sites could have served as a strate- gy for communication and defensibility, arguing “mutual defense would have been more effective because of decreased response time in the event of an attack on a neighboring village.”5
Ossuary sites are of particular significance in terms of viewshed and visibility. Ossuaries are in- herently spiritual places with important symbol- ic meaning in many Native cultures. Analysis of ossuaries in Maryland suggests that ossuaries are typically found facing open water and, in partic- ular, open water facing west. Many ossuaries have also been found in areas of locally high elevations, particularly on sand ridges with high visibility.6 Several ossuaries on the west side of Nanjemoy Creek in Charles County were visible from Nan- jemoy Indian Town (see figure 2), located on the east side of the creek.7 The Mt. Airy ossuary in Richmond County, Virginia is located at a bend in a creek with views west toward the Rappah- annock River and north toward Menokin Bay. Several Late Woodland period sites located along Menokin Bay were located within the ossuary viewshed, indicating a deliberate placement of the ossuary site in a highly visible area to surrounding settlements.8
The arrival of European invaders into the landscape throws a wrench into the gears of the settlement models previously discussed. The set- tlement of the region by the English was both a disruptive and destructive process to tradi- tional lifeways, including patterns of settlement. The next section of this chapter provides a brief context to contact with Europeans beginning in the late 16th and into the first half of the 17th century.
Early European Contact
Spanish explorers voyaging along what is now the east coast of the United States had ventured into the Chesapeake, which they called the Bahia de Santa Maria, in the late 16th century. The earliest
figure 2
Viewshed from Nanjemoy Ossuary.
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