Abstract:
Excavations by Judge William J. Graham and by T. Dale Stewart of the U.S. National Museum/Natural History from 1935 to 1940 at Potomac Neck in Stafford County, Virginia (site 44St2), produced evidence of a Late Woodland palisaded village (seven concentric palisade lines), enclosing an area of about 1.4 acres (0.56 ha). In the village were circular and elongate houses, plus storage pits, and three mass graves (ossuaries). The village proper dates from pre-Contact times. Two burial pits (one outside the palisade, and one that intruded into the outer palisade line) contained European trade items, indicating use of the site during post-Contact times, probably limited to a short time following the first European visit to the area by Captain John Smith in 1608.
Extensive collections of cultural materials and data exemplify what Karl Schmitt in 1952 named the Potomac Creek Focus. Ceramics are predominantly Potomac Creek Cord-impressed types; projectile points are small triangles, usually of white quartz; a majority of the clay pipes are of the obtuse angle type; and there is a diversity of bone tools. Shell beads are numerous, especially in the ossuaries. Burials are predominantly secondary bundle burials, with a few articulated flexed or extended, and even fewer cremations. Coupled with evidence of long-term occupation of the site (e.g., six rebuildings of the palisade), there is evidence of evolving pottery types. The earliest ware equates closely with Shepard Cord-marked type of the Piedmont Potomac valley, and this evolves into the Potomac Creek Cord-impressed and Potomac Creek Plain wares typical of the early 17th century.
