A Deep Presence

A history of the overlooked Native Americans in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.

Almost 13,000 years ago, small groups of Paleoindians endured frigid winters on the edge of a river in what would become Keene, New Hampshire. This begins the remarkable story of Native Americans in the Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire, part of the traditional homeland of the Abenaki people. Typically neglected or denied by conventional history, the long presence of Native people in southwestern New Hampshire is revealed by archaeological evidence for their deep, enduring connections to the land and the complex social worlds they inhabited. From the Tenant Swamp Site in Keene, with the remains of the oldest known dwellings in New England, to the 4,000-year-old Swanzey Fish Dam still visible in the Ashuelot River, A Deep Presence tells their story in a narrative fashion, drawing on the author's thirty years of fieldwork and presenting compelling evidence from archaeology, written history, and the living traditions of today's Abenaki people. For many people, home is not one spot on the landscape, it can be many places. In A Deep Presence: 13,000 Years of Native American History, archaeologist Robert Goodby writes a compelling story of the archaeological discoveries that help fill in some of the mysteries of Native American life and movement across the Monadnock region of New Hampshire over millennia. Based on 30 years of fieldwork, Goodby describes with great detail the tools, pottery, stonework, and other records revealed at archaeological sites along rivers and wetlands, in forests and fields. Each site has yielded insights into past inhabitants’ life in this region, along with hints at the vast social networks that existed before European settlement. Goodby goes beyond archaeology, seeking answers from Native scholars, storytellers, and others to learn about the past and from contemporary practices, including recent efforts to revitalize and share Abenaki culture.—Northern Woodland Magazine 2022