480 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



ARCHEOLOGICAL LOCALITIES IN NEW YORK 

 Albany County 



General occupation. Albany county does not seem to have been 

 a place of many settled villages nor a locality in which the aborigines 

 were content to abide as a home land. It seems to have been a land of 

 passage for there were trails up and down the Hudson, both along 

 the river bank and over the regions on the upper terrace, so that camp 

 sites are found all along the terrace from Cohoes southward to 

 South Bethlehem. 



There were many camp sites along the Normanskill southwest 

 of Albany and southwest of the Normanskill in the valley between it 

 and the Helderbergs. 



There are legends to which special credence is given by School- 

 craft stating that the Mohawk at one time had a burial place near 

 the mouth of the Normanskill, on the south side, somewhere near 

 Kenwood on the Delaware & Hudson Railroad, but it does not 

 appear by fact that the Mohawk ever had a settlement near this 

 point. 



A trail once ran from Albany along what is now Western avenue, 

 and westward to Schenectady. Scattered relics are found in camp 

 sites at Dunnsville, Fullers Station, Guilderland, McKownville and 

 on the sand flats of West Albany. Remains have also been reported 

 in the present Washington Park, in the city of Albany, while the 

 Dutch found considerable cleared ground along the river near the 

 present Steamboat square, prepared as agricultural ground. Hunting 

 camps follow in a line from Schenectady county through Altamont, 

 Meadowdale, Voorheesville, Clarksville and South Bethlehem, along 

 the edge of the Helderberg mountains, while a trail passed over 

 the escarpment at Indian ladder. 



Within historic times the county was in possession of the Mahikan 

 Indians, while remnants of the Schaghticokes within historic times 

 had very small settlements about it. One of these Indian settle- 

 ments was at Oniskethau. 



The principal implements of aborginal origin in Albany county are 

 those which have been used for hunting and food preparation ; thus, 

 all along the sand flats west and northwest of Albany are found large 

 spears and knives, pestles and mullers. Soapstone potsherds have 

 been found also in various places, and fragments of both Iroquoian 

 and Algonkian pottery. 



