The Sinking Ponds Site was home to Native Americans for thousands of years before the Village of East Aurora was established by Euro-American settlers. Occupied repeatedly over long periods, it contains Archaic, Transitional, Early Woodland, and Late Woodland artifacts, including numerous stone tools, a carved steatite bowl, and some of the region’s earliest fired-clay pottery. Buried storage pits and hearths show where people lived, and the site was most likely used as a spring-to-fall residence when fishing and birding in the shallow ponds and streams were ideal and plant and animal resources were seasonally abundant. First recognized by archeologists in 1964 and excavated in 1965 and 1966 by UB Anthropology students, the site has since been studied extensively, including further excavations by UB students from 2011 to 2013, helping establish important knowledge about the Meadowood culture. Sinking Ponds is one of the most significant Meadowood-type sites, dating to about 800-500 B.C., with broad importance for understanding regional history and cultural developments across North America. Meadowood people are believed to have been among the first to use many plant foods later domesticated as crops, and their stone tools are among the thinnest and most finely shaped in the archeological record. Numerous cache blades, made from local Onondaga chert or flint and used to make knives, spear points, and drills, were produced here and widely traded across the Northeastern U.S. and Canada, perhaps as a form of currency. The site also contains the remains of a Meadowood house where families may have lived for much of the year before moving to a winter residence.