Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Join us for one or all free talks in this series! You'll learn from members in the Environmental Archaeology Lab and get the chance to peruse the exhibits at the Woodlawn History Center, the oldest building in the Smithsonian's collection still in its original location. 

• July 13, Before the Chesapeake: Native American History - The Chesapeake Bay is the drowned channel and floodplain of the Susquehanna River, reaching its current configuration about 3,000 years ago. Join Jim Gibb, head of the Environmental Archaeology Lab, for an illustrated talk about Native American history based on archaeological evidence prior to the formation of the Chesapeake Bay. He'll even have some artifacts on hand to share with attendees! 
   
• Aug. 10, Shell-button Making - Learn about the local, historical shell-button industry and what the Lab has learned so far from census records. 
   
• Sept. 14, After the Chesapeake: Native American History - In July we covered Native American history on Maryland’s coastal plain before the Chesapeake Bay formed 3,000 years ago. In this talk, Jim Gibb, chief archaeologist at SERC, examines more recent Native American history in the region from 1,000 BCE to just before the arrival of European settlers. We’ll look at the kinds of artifacts they made—particularly pottery and stone tools—and the range of settlements they built in the coastal plain and piedmont provinces.
   
• Oct. 5, Cemeteries in the Chesapeake Region - How we treat the remains of deceased family and friends says much about us and the society we have created. Patterns of burials in cemeteries and the means by which we mark graves reveals aspects of the past that may not be recoverable through more conventional forms of historical research. This illustrated presentation will provide examples of what the Environmental Archaeology Lab has learned through archaeological investigation of cemeteries throughout the region, from simple mapping and archival research of a 19th/20th-century Irish Catholic cemetery in Baltimore City, to analysis of excavated human remains from a 17th-century family cemetery in Calvert County.
   
• Nov. 9, Maryland Smugglers in the 1650s - By law and by colonial charter, Maryland was supplied with English and Irish goods shipped in English and Irish ships manned by English and Irish crews. And yet, Italian and Dutch artifacts—particularly ceramics—appear on Maryland archaeological sites dating to the 1650s and 1660s, several appearing in the Woodlawn exhibit. In this illustrated talk, the head of the Environmental Archaeology Lab, Jim Gibb, will make a case for smuggling…smuggling made both possible and necessary by events in the British Isles.
   
• Dec. 7 - Archaeological Discovery of the 1660s Jesuit Chapel and Priests’ House at Newtown - As part of its 350th anniversary commemoration of its founding, the Parish of St. Francis Xavier in Newtown, St. Mary’s County, commissioned an archaeological search for its 1660s chapel. The Environmental Archaeology Lab found it and vidence of a previously unsuspected house for the Jesuit fathers and lay brothers. The chapel contrasts with that found at St. Mary’s City and reconstructed by the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission. In this talk, the Lab will highlight how differences reveal aspects of religious intolerance and Catholic resistance in the County during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Learn more about the Woodlawn History Center

Directions to SERC