The Original Landscape
When the first European settlers came to this area they found an environment that was anything but the flat, featureless landscape we now see around us. At that time, Philadelphia consisted of a rolling topography of forested uplands that was crossed by numerous incised stream valleys, and fringed by low-lying marshes. With a rich supply of wild game, plant foods, and other necessary raw materials, Native Americans would have found this an attractive place to live, and established their camps, hamlets, and villages on well-drained ground near sources of fresh water — on the margins of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers and alongside the area's many interior creeks and runs.
While today it is difficult to imagine what this wild landscape looked like, historical documents, written accounts, and maps have recorded and preserved at least some details of the city's original surface features. For example, the Hill's Map (1796) clearly shows the many hills, valleys, and stream channels that once traversed the northern and western sections of center city.
The image below, an "artist's conception" of the city as it appeared ca. 1707 (produced in the 19th century), provides some insight as to what areas adjacent to the Delaware River once looked like. Depicted are Dock and Little Dock Creeks, Beek's Hollow, the Duck Pond at 4th and High (Market) Streets, and the high bluff along the west bank of the Delaware, where the first settlers dug out caves in which to live.
Within this original environment the key factor involved in predicting where Native American sites might have once been found is the location of sources of fresh water. Fortunately, the area that is now center city Philadelphia was well-watered, and contained an abundance of good springs and stream channels that would have drawn Native peoples to this place.
