NCC Archaeology Professor Ernie Wiegand will present a lecture titled From Lakeside to Seaside: 10,000 years of Native American Adaptation to the Changing Environment of Westport on Tuesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. at the Westport Historical Society.

The lecture is part of the Historical Society’s The Sound and the Saugatuck program, which seeks to educate area residents about Westport’s history by taking them on a journey of 10,000 years and melding historical information on river and coastal landmarks with geological, natural, economic, political, demographic, social, ecological, waste management and conservation history.

Professor Wiegand will discuss how Native Americans reacted to climatological, geological, biological and social change over a 10,000 year period.

The presentation will include examples of Native American artifacts recovered from local sites. The lecture will start with the Paleo-Indian period of the late Ice Age and continue through the archaic period of post-glacial adaptation and the adoption of horticulture during the Woodland period and culminate with the arrival of European explorers, traders and settlers.

Professor Wiegand will examine innovations, changing populations and social developments during these time frames.

Wiegand is coordinator of Norwalk Community College’s “Archaeology as an Avocation” certificate program. Since 1975, the program has trained vocational archaeologists in the study of local historic and prehistoric archaeology.

Wiegand, who also serves as a consulting archaeologist for public and private groups during land development projects, earned an M.A. in Anthropology from Hunter College.
The Westport History Society is at 25 Avery Place, Westport.

For additional information regarding Norwalk Community College’s Archaeology as an Avocation Program, please contact Professor Ernie Wiegand at ewiegand@ncc.commnet.edu.