Meadowcroft Rockshelter

Meadowcroft Rockshelter, near Avella in western Pennsylvania, preserves an unusually long and carefully excavated record of human activity beneath a natural sandstone overhang above Cross Creek. Evidence suggests people may have used the site for at least 16,000 years and possibly 19,000, placing it among the earliest known occupied places in the Americas if the oldest dates are correct, though those dates remain debated. Excavations begun after Albert Miller’s 1955 discovery and led from 1973 by James M. Adovasio uncovered deep deposits from Paleoindian, Archaic, and Woodland periods, rich artifacts, and exceptionally preserved plant and animal remains that make the site central to North American archaeology.

Pennsylvania · United States