The Martz Rock Shelters was 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 ...
located near
Myersdale,
Somerset County,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
,
US, on the farm of Harry Martz. The Somerset County Archaeological Survey began its
excavations on June 14, 1938, and was completed six days later. The site was located about 30 miles from Metropolitan
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
. The site was discovered around 1938 during the
Works Projects Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
excavation project, necessary for the construction of state highway 219.
It was located at a hill overlooking the
Casselman River
The Casselman River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Youghiogheny River in western Maryland and Pennsylvania in the United States.Ge ...
from which a
shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
ledge protruded about two hundred and fifty feet above the river. The opening of the
cave
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...
s faced south. The site was destroyed during the construction of the highway.
Artifacts found at the site included:
*
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
and
ash
Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...
*
flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...
,
chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...
and
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
spall
Spall are fragments of a material that are broken off a larger solid body. It can be produced by a variety of mechanisms, including as a result of projectile impact, corrosion, weathering, cavitation, or excessive rolling pressure (as in a ball ...
s
*
animal bones
*
projectile points
In North American archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have be ...
*
potsherds
*
scrapers
Chert and quartz are not naturally found in Somerset County.
[Augustine, Edgar E. and Means, Bernard K.. The Martz Rock Shelters, Pennsylvania Archeologist Vol.86 no.1. Spring 2016, pages 75-78.]
Findings
The deposition was found to be thirty-six inches in depth. Local knowledge of the site attributes the occupation to
Native Americans. The excavation confirmed that the site was occupied as early as other sites located in eastern parts of Pennsylvania.
The site indicates that the settlement was occupied by a subsistence based group. Characteristics of subsistence settlements were dependence on
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maĆz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
, villages that were located above the river
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 ...
and the use of underground storage.
References
Archaic period in North America
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Demolished buildings and structures in Pennsylvania
History of Pennsylvania
Museums in Washington County, Pennsylvania
National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania
Archaeological museums in Pennsylvania
Native American museums in Pennsylvania
Rock shelters in the United States
Paleo-Indian archaeological sites in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Washington County, Pennsylvania
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