Join us as we kick off Freedom's Way National Heritage Area's 2024 Connecting Communities: Walks & Talks program with a walking tour of Acton Center sponsored by the Acton 250 Committee! SPACE IS LIMITED TO 20 FOR EACH WALK; REGISTRATION REQUIRED! Click here to register for the April 6th walk. Click here to register for […]
New England’s rock art, imagery carved or painted on stone, provides a tantalizing, if often opaque, window into the region’s deep indigenous history. Drawing primarily from examples in Maine, Peter Anick, vice president of ARARA (American Rock Art Research Association), reviews various attempts to date, contextualize, and interpret figures using geology, ethnography, and comparisons with […]
Duncan Ritchie, Senior Archaeologist at The Public Archaeology Laboratory will talk about Sand Hill, a large multicomponent Middle Archaic to Late Woodland Period site on the Sudbury River in Wayland, MA. The large assemblage of chipped, ground and rough stone tools, ceramic sherds and radiocarbon dated features document pre-contact Native American activities over a 7,000-year […]
Join a book group discussion of the History of the Nashobah Praying Indians, published earlier this year by Littleton historian Dan Boudillion, who will be on hand to sign copies before the discussion. Books will be available for purchase that day. In person only at Acton Memorial Library. This program is free but registration is […]
Former Acton Health Director, Doug Halley, describes the discovery of the Pine Hawk archaeological site and its significance. He relates how the project activated an increased interest in historical preservation, leading to the restoration of the Acton Stone Chamber and to continuing work on Acton’s Trail Through Time, which brings the interface of two different […]
Kimberley Connors, a local archaeologist specializing in public education, will share the fascinating archaeology of our local environment, from the Native American arrival thousands of years ago, through the European contact of the 1600s, and into the Colonial and early industrial periods. This program can help us appreciate our local landscape and what it offered […]
Author Dan Boudillion will discuss his just-published book on the history of the Nashobah Praying Indians from the 1654 establishment of the Praying Indian Plantation to their sufferings during King Philip’s War and exile on Deer Island, to the loss of their lands in 1736. The Nashobah village was one is the 16 “Praying Villages” […]
Many of the “mysterious” stone structures of New England, once thought to be by-products of colonial farming, are now understood as originating in pre-colonial ceremonial practices of Native Americans. Peter Waksman’s talk focuses on contributions to the new understanding made by people and locations in Acton and nearby towns. There has been a growing awareness […]
Archaeologist Robert Goodby discusses his field work at a site, undisturbed since the end of the Ice Age, in Keene, New Hampshire, that revealed information about the economy, gender roles, and household organization of the region’s first inhabitants, and evidence of social networks that extended for hundreds of miles across northern New England. Archaeological fieldwork […]
Archaeologist Holly Herbster discusses her research on one of seven original “Praying Towns” established in 1669 by missionary John Eliot. Colonial records tie specific Native people to the archaeological remains of the original meeting house and the importance of this place within Nipmuc homelands. Ongoing collaborative research with Nipmuc descendants is carrying this story forward. […]
