Author Description

The New York State Museum is pleased to offer Robert E. Funk’s The West Athens Hill Site Revisited, a new volume on the archaeology of New York State. This book is the final report of three years of excavations by Dr. Funk at this important Paleo-Indian period site. Previously reported excavations at the site are summarized and supplemented with descriptions of additional excavation and analytical results. The site’s three occupation areas and the recovered artifacts are detailed and compared using tables summarizing extensive metric data. The report offers interpretations that reconstruct the activities of the ancient inhabitants. In addition to archaeological finds, the report describes the site’s environmental setting including regional geography and geology. The artifact assemblages recovered at the site are also compared with assemblages from eleven other Paleo-Indian sites in New York. A lengthy forward by James Petersen places research at West Athens Hill in the larger context of Paleo-Indian studies in the Northeast. Forty six figures illustrate the excavations at West Athens Hill and the recovered artifacts. The West Athens Hill Site Revisited is an essential volume for all students of early occupations of the Northeast. The book will also be valuable to those interested in the human history of New York State and the broader region.