Annual Meeting 11/4/23

Visitors Center, Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth NH

Registration: $10 at the door. Complimentary registration with a Student ID.

No pre-registration required for on-site attendance.

The meeting is also available on ZOOM. Zoom register at http://bit.ly/2023FALLNHAS

Parking is available in the Museum’s parking lot off Hancock Street and at several Portsmouth parking lot.

9:00 am. Registration opens. Morning refreshments.

9:55 - 10:00 am. Welcome and opening remarks.

10:00 - 10:45 am. The Kchi Pôntegok Petroglyph Project: Recontextualizing the Bellows Falls Petroglyph Site within an Indigenous Landscape.

Gail Golec, Project Archaeologist, Monadnock Archaeological Consulting, Inc.

Interpretation of Indigenous history has historically been grounded in white Euro-American culture and as a result, important elements of the Indigenous worldview are often overlooked or disregarded. The Kchi Pôntegok Petroglyph Project, funded through the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Communities Grant program, is attempting to address this lack of Indigenous cultural nuance by recontextualizing the Kchi Pôntegok/Bellows Falls site (VT-WD-008) within the wider landscape of the Middle Connecticut River watershed and its resources, connections and stories, as well as the regions’ Indigenous and historic archaeological sites.

Gail Golec was born and raised in New Hampshire and has been a professional archaeologist for over 20 years. I’ve undertaken a number of research projects focusing on local women’s, Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ history and regularly present that research in library and historical society talks as well as in classes through the CALL program at Keene State College. I also have a history podcast about cemeteries called “The Secret Life of Death”. Currently I’m a co-manager of the Kchi Pôntegok Petroglyph Project in Rockingham, VT.

10:45 - 11:00 am. Break

11:00 - 11:45 am. Shallow Water; Deep History: Archaeological Investigations in the Umbagog Lake Region.

Nathan Scholl, M.A., RPA, Geoarchaeologist.

Umbagog Lake is located on the border of New Hampshire and Maine in a remote region of both states. This lake is the headwaters of the Androscoggin River and was the historical intersection of at least four indigenous trails. Investigations between 2019 and 2022 of the archaeological records around the region of this lake will be discussed, from Pre-Contact to Post-Contact periods with insights into the environmental history of the lake as well.

Nathan Scholl has more than 22 years of experience in archaeology and cultural resource management, including over 15 years as a practicing geoarchaeologist. Mr. Scholl’s geographical expertise is focused on the Northeast, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest of the United States, in addition to the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. As a geoarchaeologist, he applies techniques of soil and geomorphological analysis, as well as basic geophysical techniques, to archaeological sites for predictive and interpretive purposes. Born and raised in Maine, his family has deep roots in New England, with ancestry tracing back to some of the first European settlers, and he is fascinated by the cultural and environmental history of the region. He currently works as a technical reviewer for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

11:45 am - 1:00 pm. Lunch on your own. Information on some nearby places to eat in Portsmouth will be available at the meeting.

1:00 - 1:30 pm. Business Meeting and Members Forum.

Candidates for election. For three-year term as a Member-at-Large of the Executive Board: Mark Doperalski and Genevieve Everett. For Treasurer: Scott LaPointe, replacing Mark Greenly who was elected temporary Treasurer by the Executive in Feb 2023 after Judy Sadoski’s resignation. For Editor: Alix Martin, for the remainder of the Editor’s term of office until the Annual meeting in 2024. Alix was elected temporary Editor by the Executive Board in November 2022.

1:30 2:15 pm. The Early Piscataqua Region, as Seen Through its Ceramic Artifacts.

Dr. Alix Martin, Archeologist, Strawbery Banke Museum, and Dr. Tad Baker, Professor of History, Salem State University.

Sport divers Ray and John Demers recovered thousands of historic artifacts from the waters off New Castle in the 1970s, one of the largest and most important assemblages in the northeast. The Demers Collection is now at New Castle Historical Society where Alix Martin and Tad Baker have been studying and cataloging its ceramics. In the process they are learning exciting details about life in the Piscataqua in the colonial era, as well as the region’s extensive trade connections throughout the Atlantic world. Many of the ceramics were made in the West Country of England, a region that many Piscataqua settlers hailed from, and continued to trade with throughout the seventeenth century. Other finds were made in more distant lands, including France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy.

Dr. Alix Martin and Dr. Tad Baker both hold a Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary, and collectively have well over 50 years of experience excavating historical archaeology sites in northern New England.

Activities after the meeting

1. Pick up a map of the museum grounds and admire the 37 buildings preserved at Strawbery Banke Museum, a 10-acre outdoor history museum dedicated to bringing to life over 300 years of history in the same waterfront neighborhood.

2. Stop by the Carter Collections Center on the west side of the museum campus to visit the archaeology lab and see recent and significant artifacts in the museum collection. The center will be open for half an hour following the end of the meeting.

If you have any questions about the meeting, please contact Mark Greenly at tel: (603) 436-6906 or email: secretary@nhas.org

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Parking Information.

This map shows Portsmouth municipal parking lots near Strawbery Banke that have free parking if the Strawbery Banke lot is full. The Parrott Avenue Lot, South Mill Pond Lot, and City Hall Lower Lot are certain to be used by people visiting the Farmers Market at City Hall but there will probably be spaces available in them. Peirce Island has several free parking lots, not just the one marked on this map. It is also less likely than the other three to be used by Farmers Market patrons.