POLLEN AND MACROFLORAL ANALYSIS OF SAMPLES FROM THE JAMES W. HATCH SITE, 36CE0544, CENTRE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

The James W. Hatch Site (36CE0544) is located 80 meters west of Slab Cabin Run, a tributary of Spring Creek near the base of Nittany Mountain, Centre County, Pennsylvania. Site surroundings include Millbrook Marsh Nature Center, a marsh ecosystem preserve, and the Pennsylvania State University campus. The geology of the site demonstrates complexly folded and faulted Cambrian and Ordovician carbonate rocks, which is common in the western Appalachian Mountains. Diagnostic lithic finds recovered from the site by the Cultural Research Institute (CRI) at Juniata College include notched projectile points and a scraper from the late Paleoindian or Early Archaic cultural periods (Jonathan Burns, personal communication, September 13, 2018). The Energy and Environmental Sustainability Laboratory at Penn State tested and returned 14C dates for 17 samples, indicating occupation at the Hatch Site from the Early Archaic through the Late Woodland cultural periods (9048 ± 36 to 853 ± 43 CAL yr BP). CRI submitted six sediment samples to PaleoResearch Institute. PaleoResearch conducted pollen analysis on three samples from the Millbrook Marsh and macrofloral analysis on three samples from the Hatch Site.