Native People in the Monadnock Region: Unearthing 13,000 Years of History, Survival, and Endurance

The Monadnock region is in the southern part of Ndakkina, the traditional homeland of the Western Abenaki. Archaeological evidence shows their ancestors arrived here almost 13,000 years ago, sharing the landscape with mammoths and caribou and coping with brutal cold and rapid climate change. This presence continued unbroken for the next 12,000 years, as their descendants changed, adapted, made expert use of the local environment, and shared culture and resources with a network of Native people extending across much of eastern North America. Even with numbers greatly reduced by disease, the Abenaki, with the help of their French allies, forcefully resisted and delayed the 18th century English colonization of the region, even after becoming the targets of lucrative scalp bounties offered by the colonial governments of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Early local histories minimized or denied the existence of the Abenaki, a claim debunked by historic records proving their ongoing presence in the Monadnock region from the 19th century to the present.

About the Speaker: Robert Goodby is a professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Brown University and has spent more than thirty years studying Native American archaeological sites in New England. He is a past president of the New Hampshire Archeological Society, a former Trustee of the Mount Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner, and served on the New Hampshire Commission on Native American Affairs. In 2010, he directed the excavations of four 12,000-year-old Paleoindian dwellings at the Tenant Swamp site in Keene, and his book A Deep Presence: 13,000 Years of Native American History, was published in 2021 by Peter E. Randall Publisher.

This event is in recognition of Indigenous Peoples' Day and is part of a year-long series on "Forensics and Genocide" that is being offered by the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College.

This is a hybrid event. Registration for in-person attendance is available here. Registration for virtual attendance is available here.

This event is part of the Cohen Center calendar.