Published: November 15, 2008 10:27 pm         

PennDOT projects churn up artifacts

HOLLIDAYSBURG — As PennDOT celebrates archeology month across the state, one of the most significant findings occurred deep in southern Somerset County.

A decade ago, as workers prepared to construct a section of four-lane Route 219, a routine preliminary dig during the permitting process uncovered a Monongahela Indian village.

The remains of two 13th-century children were discovered, providing a rare glimpse into the past.

“Meyersdale would probably be our biggest and most recent significant archeological find,” said Tom Yocum, environmental manager for PennDOT’s district office in Hollidaysburg. “We investigate every project we do for archeological finds.”

Highway and bridge construction or renovations may unearth spots that become prime targets for archeologists, PennDOT’s Allison Wenger said.

“Home to the state’s largest public sector archeology program, PennDOT annually invests between $5 million and $15 million to identify and preserve the secrets of Pennsylvania’s past,” Wenger said.

The state conducts an average of 50 archaeological investigations annually, he said. While attempts are made to leave significant areas undisturbed, at times that is not an option.

Such was the case with the Meyersdale project.

The archeologists document everything found during the dig and samples are forwarded to Harrisburg to a second group of experts, said Susanna Haney, regional archeologist for PennDOT.

“Everything goes to Harrisburg to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,” said Haney, an archeologist since 1988.

The goal of an excavation is to bring up samples to be identified and preserved.

“If we find thousands of square nails, we don’t send them all,” Haney said. “We just send a sample.”

At the commission, the items are categorized and stored, said PHMC spokesman Mark Shaffer.

The digs are funded with taxpayer dollars and arrangements can be made for tours of the collections, especially by researchers and groups interested in a specific local project.

More modern items may be noted and not kept. But examples of life in pre-historic, Colonial and early 20th-century times are kept for future generations.

At Meyersdale, 68 sites were found along a five-mile corridor. The most significant was the village of the Monongahela culture, which carbon dating puts at 12,000 years ago.

Also unearthed and preserved were samples of more modern life dating back to the late 1800s.

The find, outlined in a PennDOT-funded video titled “Ghosts of the Mountain,” stresses the importance of the archeological efforts that often serve as a teaching tool.

Historians long thought the Monongahela Indians disappeared from the area 200 years earlier than what the carbon dating from fire pits revealed.

The consensus now is that they were here until the 1400s and vanished without explanation 200 to 300 years before white settlers came to westcentral Pennsylvania.

Other significant finds include a site 80 miles to the east in Lewistown, where improvements to a centuries old transportation route uncovered an 8,000-year-old Native American trailside camp, and an intact lock from the Pennsylvania Canal of the 1800s.

Despite the cost of unearthing and retaining the artifacts, it’s a program with far-reaching benefits, Haney believes.

“The potential exists just about anywhere in Pennsylvania to find historical resources,” Haney said.

     

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