[NYSAA (1986)] 9 Rendezvous with Prehistory-The Riffles site Robert J. Gorall 22 The Ossining Rockshelter Stuart J. Fiedel 32 No. 92, Spring, 1986 1 local settlement system which became increasingly nucleated and seasonally extended at Winney's Rift during the course of the Middle to Late Woodland periods. Support for this interpretation also derives from seasonality studies of faunal remains and from trace element analysis of ceramic artifacts. INTRODUCTION During 1984 and 1985 students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Skidmore College carried out field investigations at the Winney's Rift Site under the direction of Drs. Hetty Jo Brumbach and Susan Bender. In the context of these investigations, both 1 X 2 meter squares and shovel test units, numerous artifactual data of all types as well as extensive ecofactual remains were recovered. Several major features were also unearthed, including hearths, fire pits, middens, and pits whose functions are not immediately discernible. Laboratory analyses of the resultant data are currently in process. Rather than discuss the particulars of these findings, it is our purpose here to share with you some of the major interpretive implications of the work to date. Winney's Rift is a multi-component site located along Fish Creek, a small tributary of the Hudson River that debauches into the main drainage about 50 km north of Albany, New York (Figure 1). As the name suggests, Fish Creek is famous in local lore for its plentiful fish populations, although they have dwindled, both in numbers and diversity, in recent times due to dam construction and pollution. There is, however. ample historic and ethnohistoric evidence to suggest that at one time Fish Creek hosted large, year-round fish populations, as well as major late spring-early summer runs of anadromous species; shad, herring, and alewife being the most prominent (Brumbach 1978). As a result, of course, our own excavations at the site which have, unfortunately, been forced to work around severe disturbances created by unethical collectors. The second source is an invaluable surface collection amassed during 50 years of dedicated walking of plowed fields by Louis E. Follett of Schuylerville, New York. Mr. Follett's collection also contains artifacts from 11 other sites located along the Fish Creek drainage, providing a much-needed local prehistoric context for Winney's Rift. The third source is a collection recovered in excavation by members of the Auringer-Seelye Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association. Complementary data from these three sources demand a revised interpretation of Winney's Rift. Area excavations, combined with systematic shovel testing, confirm that the site is both vertically and horizontally stratified, producing cultural material diagnostic of Late Archaic through early contact periods. Ceramic artifacts, being particular ly sensitive temporal indicators, reveal stylistic components attributable to most phases of the Middle and Late Woodland periods. However, the Follett and Auringer-Seelye collections contain projectile points that may extend the site's chronology to the even older Early and Middle Archaic periods. Such a long, continuous sequence at one site is unique in the Hudson Valley, and it is suggestive of the extraordinary importance of Winney's Rift in the explanation of prehistoric settlement systems. The most intense occupations have been attributed to the Middle and Late Woodland time periods. Typical of our excavation units located near the intermittent stream bank were stratigraphic columns as deep as 86 cm uniformly blackened by heavy occupational activity. In all such cases, the earliest components were dated by diagnostics J to the late Middle Woodland period. Moreover, subsequent laboratory analyses have revealed that within these units the hate Woodland components consistently yielded the highest volumes of bone and lithic debitage (Table 1). These two classes of data were subjected to quantification because they clearly represent primary discard and thus probably monitor complement the period of availability of anadromous fish during the late spring and early summer months of April through early July (Brumbach 1978). In addition to the remains of deer, bear, and smaller mammals such as beaver and raccoon, often interpreted as evidence of fall or winter hunting, the site produced remains of presumed warm-weather resources including fish, bird, turtle, clam and mussel. Other supporting indicators of seasonality are being pursued through study of mussel annuli and species-level identification of turtle. Flotation studies are also underway to recover a more representative sample of smaller floral and faunal material. However, the presently emerging pattern for the Middle to Late Woodland deposits is one of multi-seasonal occupation. To reiterate these arguments, then, Winney's Rift is part of a long sequence of occupation clearly documented for the Fish Creek drainage, beginning probably in the Early Archaic. Moreover, coincident with similar processes in other areas of the Northeast, resident populations in the Fish Creek drainage appear to have seasonally extended and concentrated their activities at Winney's Rift in a village-like habitation throughout the Middle and Late Woodland periods. For reasons