Archaeologists from the NYSM’s Cultural Resource Survey Program are in the field, excavating at the precontact Native American Genesee Overlook site in Western New York. The site was found during a survey in advance of road construction, when chipped stone artifacts were found across a broad terrace near the Genesee River in 2023.
The CRSP team is now digging several square excavation units (most measuring 1x1 meter or about 3x3 feet in size) in order to understand more about the Indigenous site. Important questions to ask include who the people who made the stone objects were, how long ago they were here, whether they visited only once or many times, and what brought them to this location and what they did here.
The team has uncovered some clues. The stone tools, made from local chert (flint), suggest the site was occupied during the Late Archaic period, a long span of roughly 3,000 to 6,000 years ago. Remnants of hearths have been uncovered suggesting that people lived on the site, and charcoal from the hearths will be used for more precise radiocarbon dating. Stay tuned for more on this developing research!
