Address Restricted, Rostraver Township, Pennsylvania. County/parish: Westmoreland.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places March 20, 1986. NRIS 86000465.
1 contributing site.Also known as:
The Household No. 1 Site is an archaeological site in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located off Timms Lane in Rostraver Township, the site lies on a bluff above the Youghiogheny River.
Local archaeologists knew of the site in the early part of the twentieth century; the best records of the site are from amateur George Fisher, who studied the area from 1900 to 1950. More complete records were obtained after a 1980 investigation, which was part of the planning for the construction of baseball fields in the vicinity. Because archaeologists discovered a significant range of artifacts in the location, the fields were moved to allow for continued excavation. This investigation determined that the site was that of a Monongahela village.
Evidence of warfare dominated the findings from the Household 1 Site. Many burials were present at the site — including sixteen at the site of one house alone — and projectile points composed a much larger percentage of the total findings than did domestic tools. Furthermore, the small total number of artifacts overall shows that the site was only occupied for a short period of time, and its location on a river bluff suggests that its site was chosen for defensibility. These discoveries, like those at many other Monongahela village sites, demonstrate that the Household residents lived in a highly martial culture.
In 1986, the Household Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its archaeological significance.
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