A look at New Hampshire 12,000 years ago
Dr. Robert Goodby is a Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce University. He earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Brown University and will be presenting his program “12,000 Years Ago in the Granite State” on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Peterborough Town Library, about an archaeological survey for the new Keene Middle School that brought to light one of the oldest Native American sites in New England. Goodby’s book A Deep Presence: 13,000 Years of Native American History is available from the Harris Center for Conservation Education (harriscenter.org).
How far back do human settlements go in New England?
The site I’m going to be talking about is the oldest dated site in New England. The date we have, it’s a radiocarbon date, is 12,600 years ago. The sites from this time period are relatively rare. We call this time period the Paleo-Indian period; it basically means old Indian period, and it’s the first period of human occupation here. … Of all the sites that we know about in all of New England, there are maybe one or two sites that are as old as the one in Keene that I’ll be talking about, but none that are older.
Are there any sort of indications that would lead you to think that a spot possibly contains an older human settlement?
You have to sort of work with geologists and recreate what the landscape was like at the end of the Ice Age and sort of understand it from that perspective. In Keene what we had was a nice high, dry, sandy terrace overlooking a river that would have given people a really good view to the south where they would have been able to watch the movement of game animals, particularly caribou, who were here at that time. There are some basics. All people need water, so the sites are close to water. Nobody likes to live on wet ground, and so you’re looking for nice dry sandy soil. Nobody likes to live on a slope or on land covered with boulders. So you look for the level dry, more or less rock-free areas that are close to water, and that’s where the sites tend to be.
What artifacts can be found at a site?
…We have stone tools, and we have over 200 of them. We also have burned pieces of animal bones, some of which have been identified as caribou. … [W]e think this was a wintertime occupation, and the winters back then were brutal, so people would have been hunkering down in their tents, eating food that they had stored up during the fall and just waiting for spring to come.
Is there anything that you’re still looking for? Something you hope to find?
That’s one of the things I love about archaeology is every time you’re looking at a site and starting to do excavation you really have no idea what might turn up. It’s really sort of the surprises that make it special and the idea that you don’t always know what you’re going to find. …
Anything else you’d like to mention about the talk or ancient sites in New Hampshire?
Just that we have a very long Native American history in the state and it hasn’t ended yet. We still have people here who are descended from the original inhabitants. And so it’s a very interesting story that’s still unfolding. The people who were here when the Europeans arrived, and the people who are still here, are the Abenaki. … [T]here is no evidence in that more than 12,000 years that the Native Americans here ever abandoned this area or that they were ever pushed out by someone who came from somewhere else until the Europeans arrived. So the more archaeology we do, the more we see that we just have continuous Native American presence here from, you know, almost 13,000 years ago all the way up to today. …
—Zachary Lewis
“12,000 Years Ago in the Granite State”
Hosted by Friends of the Peterborough Library
When: Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough
Info: Contact Rebecca Enman, 924-8040. Visit nhhumanities.org/programs.
Featured image: Dr. Robert Goodby. Courtesy photo.
