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Selden Island I (18MO20)

Site History

The Selden Island I site (18MO20) is a Late Woodland palisaded village located on Selden Island in the Potomac River in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Archaeological Investigations

The Selden Island I site is a major late precontact period archaeological site of ca. A.D. 1400-1600. The site has been subjected to considerable uncontrolled digging (pothunting) by many individuals since the late 1920s. In addition to surface collecting, some collectors used metal rods to probe the soil to locate features, which they dug. Between 1938 and 1948, amateur archaeologist Richard Slattery excavated a 40 foot section of a palisade line. Larrabee (1941) stated that the Archeological Society of Maryland conducted exploratory excavations at this site. In the 1950s and 1960s, Smithsonian archaeologist Albert G. Hahn and archaeologist Howard MacCord excavated 50 five foot squares, revealed house patterns, shallow oval pits, and cylindrical pits. Apparently the field notes, photographs, and artifacts from this work were destroyed in a catastrophic event (McDaniel 1987). McDaniel conducted work at the site in 1980 in the wake of site damage from large earthmoving equipment (McDaniel 1987).

Some systematic work at the site suggests that it was a densely occupied, palisaded town with circles of houses surrounding a central open plaza. Wide trade networks involving the distributions of coastal resources for exotic stone material and other objects such as copper are indicated. The most common artifacts are pieces of grit and sand tempered pottery, triangular points, and animal bone refuse. Beads made from seashells and exotic stone pipes in the styles of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys suggest the wide trade contacts.

There are no published accounts of the archaeological work or digging at this site, although the site was the subject of dissertation work completed in 1987 (McDaniel 1987). The site was listed on the National Register in 1975.

References

Larrabee, Edward McMillan

1962   A Survey of Historic and Prehistoric Archeological Sites along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Monument 1961-1962. MHT# MO 41.

McDaniel, Roland

1987   The Language of the Motif; An Analysis of the Walker Village Late Woodland Ceramics. PhD dissertation, American University, MHT# MO109.

(Edited from archeological site survey form, Maryland Historical Trust)