Meadowcroft Rockshelter, 1977: An Overview

Abstract

Meadowcroft Rockshelter is a deeply stratified multicomponent site in Washington County, southwestern Pennsylvania. The 11 well-defined stratigraphic units identified at the site span at least 16,000 years and perhaps 19,000 years of intermittent occupation by groups representing all of the major cultural stages/periods now recognized in northeastern North America. Throughout the extant sequence, the site served as a locus for hunting, collecting, and food-processing activities, which involved the seasonal exploitation of the immediately adjacent Cross Creek Valley and contiguous uplands. Presently, Meadowcroft Rockshelter represents one of the earliest well-dated evidences of man in the New World as well as the longest occupational sequence in the Western Hemisphere.