CONNECTING PREHISTORIC BEDROCK QUARRIES TO FISH WEIR COMPLEXES IN THE WALLKILL RIVER VALLEY, ORANGE COUNTY, NEW YORK

The Pochuck Creek Site, Orange County, New York, is situated on a terrace of a north-flowing tributary of the Wallkill River. The site is located in a trend of Leithsville Formation prehistoric quarries, which are part of the Normal Faulted Section of the greater Wallkill Valley Prehistoric Chert Quarry Province. A mosaic of fish jumps and weirs span Pochuck Creek at the site. Recovered stone-tool assemblages include an array of morphological forms ranging from Middle Archaic (4500-3000 BCE) to Transitional (2200-800 BCE). First appearance of cultural materials may mark drainage base-level stabilization following sea-level rise across the continental shelf since the Younger Dryas. This would correspond to establishment of Ostrea (oyster) mounds within the Lower Hudson Estuary.

The presence of chert caches composed of thin bifaces/bifacial cores is noteworthy. The raw-material type is predominantly Schoharie and Esopus formation cherts that crop out to the north. Many cache pieces can be refitted and diagnostic forms include projectile points of Susquehanna Broadspear through Orient Fishtail traditions. Close inspection of bifaces show rupturing during bifacial thinning. Absence of cortex flakes suggests that Esopus/Schoharie cherts were mined from direct-access bedrock quarries. Diagnostic stone tools fashioned from other raw materials include ferruginous cherts originating from the Pennsylvania Jasper District and Great Valley Sequence of New Jersey, and lesser quantities of Cambrian-Ordovician nodular cherts which crop out in the study area.

Results of analyses suggest that jumps/weirs along Pochuck Creek may have been a destination for cultural groups inhabiting the foothills of the Catskills, approximately 100 miles north. Presence of ferruginous cherts from the Pennsylvania Piedmont, in association with steatite bowl fragments, indexes a relationship to the Broadspear Tradition, equally 100 miles to the southwest along the Delaware River. Numerous outcrops of Wallkill Member, Leithsville Formation cherts that occur in the shadows of the site have minimal representation in the stone-tool inventory. This data suggests unique cultural relationships of well-timed and coordinated interactions between groups located outside the Wallkill catchment, and peoples within.