The Fisher site is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

in northwestern Greene County,

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. Located along a tributary of Wheeling Creek in northern Richhill Township, it was once occupied by a Monongahela village. It has been ranked as one of southwestern Pennsylvania's most important locations for prehistoric preservation.

Location

The Fisher site lies in the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of the Enlow Fork, occupying a relatively rare clearing in the predominantly wooded hills of northern Greene County. Wooded lands around the site and along the Enlow Fork are part of State Game Lands 302, a public hunting and fishing preserve.DeLorme. ''Pennsylvania Atlas & Gazetteer''. 8th ed. Yarmouth:

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, 2003, 84. .

Profile

Testing has revealed that the village was part of the Drew Phase of the Monongahela; it was the tenth Drew site to be identified. The location of the Fisher site in bottomland distinguishes it from all previously-known Drew sites and most other Monongahela villages; due to the frequent warfare among the Monongahela, their villages were typically built on hilltops.George, Richard L. National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Deffenbaugh Site (36FA57).

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

, 1981-07-31.

Excavations

Although property owners had collected surface artifacts at the site since at least the early 1940s, the Fisher site was first observed in 1962 during testing to reveal

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

wells in the area. Fourteen years passed before an archaeological investigation was conducted at the site; testing conducted by this investigation revealed it to be a

Late Woodland In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeolog ...

village site. A third excavation, carried out much more meticulously than either of the others, was completed shortly before 1981. Nearly 1,100 artifacts were recovered from the test pits of the third excavation, including animal bones, stone tools, and over 500

potsherds This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

of various styles. Among the potsherds were pieces decorated with unusual geometric designs; no other site is known to have produced pottery with these designs.

Preservation

Intensive industrialization in the river valleys of southwestern Pennsylvania has likely destroyed most of the region's Monongahela sites originally located in floodplains. Moreover, it is possible that many unknown sites have been destroyed during the process of

surface mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

for coal in the region. In contrast to this common situation, the Enlow Fork in the vicinity of the Fisher site is quite undeveloped; only small roads traverse the region, and — unlike in southern Richhill Township — no gas wells operate nearby. The pristine condition of the site and the likelihood that it will yield information about the little-known Drew Phase has led it to be assessed as highly worthy of preservation. In accordance with this goal, the site was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1982.

Location

Profile

Excavations

Preservation

See also

References

Further reading