By Liz Glaviano and Julia Michnowicz. Special thanks to Dr. Kevin McBride and Dr. Sarah P. Sportman.
This curation ran from June-September 2023.
South Windsor’s archaeological record provides a window into the town’s rich Indigenous past. The area has been the site of not only intensive digs but also numerous surface finds. Repeatedly occupied for thousands of years, its fertile meadows provided an ideal living space for food cultivation given its close proximity to the Connecticut River.
In 1614, Dutch explorer Adriaen Block sailed up the Connecticut River. Approximately half-way between what is now known as the towns of Hartford and Windsor, Block came upon a palisaded fort inhabited by Indigenous Peoples he called the Nawaas or Nowaas. This fort, according to J. Hammond Trumbull, “was on the east side of the river, in what is now South Windsor, between Podunk and Scantic Rivers, on the ground called Nowashe.” In 1636, Nowashe was “sold” to the Windsor Plantation. The town’s most notable archaeological sites are Woodchuck Knoll and Burnham-Shepard, in addition to the smaller supporting sites of Kasheta and Butternut Knoll. Each site was excavated by a team of archaeologists from the University of Connecticut from the 1970s to well into the 1990s.
To learn more about Indigenous artifacts from South Windsor, click on a category below.
