Description:  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 part of a 2024-2025 series on "Forensics and Genocide" being offered by the Cohen Center. If you would like to make a gift to support this lecture or other Center offerings, please visit:  https://giving.keene.edu/cchgs/

If you have any questions, please contact cohencenter@keene.edu.

We look forward to seeing you in person or online for this fascinating lecture!