Editing Pre-Contact Settlements (section)

== Village Locations ==

By the Late Woodland period (approximately 1,000-400 years ago), the ancestors of the historic Lenape had developed a settlement pattern that would persist until European contact. Villages were typically located near waterways, which provided fish, transportation, and access to the rich floodplain soils suitable for agriculture. The Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, along with their tributaries such as the Wissahickon, Pennypack, and Cobbs Creeks, would have supported numerous settlements. Villages varied in size from small hamlets of a few families to larger communities of several hundred people, with populations shifting seasonally according to resource availability.<ref name="weslager">{{cite book |last=Weslager |first=C.A. |title=The Delaware Indians: A History |year=1972 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |location=New Brunswick, NJ}}</ref>

Specific village locations within the boundaries of modern Philadelphia are difficult to identify with certainty. Early colonial records mention Lenape settlements at Shackamaxon (in present-day [[Fishtown]]), Passyunk (in South Philadelphia), and Wicaco (near present-day [[Queen Village]]), but these references are often vague about precise locations. The site of Shackamaxon, where William Penn legendarily concluded a treaty with the Lenape, was marked by a great elm tree that survived until 1810. [[Penn Treaty Park]] now commemorates this location, though the extent of the original village is unknown. Similarly, the village of Passyunk gave its name to the area of South Philadelphia through which [[Passyunk Avenue]] runs, but the village itself was displaced before detailed records could be made.<ref name="donehoo">{{cite book |last=Donehoo |first=George P. |title=A History of the Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania |year=1928 |publisher=Telegraph Press |location=Harrisburg, PA}}</ref>