For thousands of years, Native Americans have lived in the lower Merrimack Valley. The people who lived in the villages and camps here were the Pawtucket, an expansion of the Pennacook people of New Hampshire.

What were they doing here?

How did the Great Marsh provide for them and what was their impact upon the Great Marsh?

The lecture is provided by Mary Ellen Lepionka, retired anthropologist, college instructor, author, and textbook editor who embarked on a study of the archaeology and indigenous history of Essex County from the last Ice Age to around 1700. She is a member and presenter of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and the New England Antiquities Research Association. Lepionka’s articles and essays on local indigenous history appear in the Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society.