In a plowed field in 1962, circles of darkened soil marked the location of a late prehistoric Monongahela village across Buckeye Road from the park. The West Virginia Geologic Survey investigated this site and two others on the same property and assigned site numbers to them. Postmolds showed where shelters and a stockade had been built. Principal sites of the Monongahela culture in western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia have been found in the Monongahela River Valley. Many circular villages, usually stockaded and measuring 1 to 2 acres, have been found there, with small circular huts lining the inside of the palisade. The houses were pole-and-bark, dome-shaped structures, often with attached pear-shaped pits that were probably storage bins. Burials were placed in pits within the village area. Artifacts of flint, stone, copper, bone, and pottery were found at this site.