In the fall of 1964 and the spring of 1965, racing the earth movers poised to establish the roadbed for I-787, R. Arthur Johnson of the VanEpps-Hartley chapter of the NY State Archeological Association working with Robert E. Funk of the NY State Museum and Science Service and other volunteers, furiously investigated a section of the Flatts along the Little River. Traces of Native American occupation brought to the surface by early work on the highway propelled the study at what has come to be called the Dennis Site.

The clear stratigraphy of the area study, typical of an alluvial plain, made it possible to delineate clear stratum of occupation. These soil zones yielded over 830 artifacts which attested to human habitation at the Flatts from the Archaic Period onward.

(Dennis Site artifacts        Memoir 22 by Robert E. Funk 1976)