The Archaeology of Bear Trap Spring Rockshelter, Ulster County, New York

Abstract

The Bear Trap Spring Rockshelter (NYSM 9792) is a Multi-Component Pre-Contact Site in the Rondout drainage in the Town of Olive, situated along the eastern edge of the Catskills in New York's Mid-Hudson Valley. It was almost entirely excavated by avocational archaeologists from the New York State Archaeological Association's Mid-Hudson Chapter from c. 1959 to 1966. Occupations found in the rockshelter range from the Middle Archaic Neville Phase to those of the Late Woodland/Contact Period Esopus Indians. Comparisons with 8 other nearby rockshelters in the Ashokan Catskills, as well as 14 rockshelters within a 50 km radius, point to consistent peaks in occupation during the Late Archaic and the Late Woodland.