Aquadoctan was one of the largest known Native American villages in what is now the U.S. state of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. In an area commonly known today as The Weirs (for the semi-permanent fishing weirs the natives had built on the river), the village lay on the north bank of the

Winnipesaukee River The Winnipesaukee River is a river that connects Lake Winnipesaukee with the Pemigewasset and Merrimack rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire. The river is in the Lakes Region of central New Hampshire. The river's drainage area is approximately . ...

at the outlet of

Lake Winnipesaukee Lake Winnipesaukee () is the largest lake in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, located in the Lakes Region at the foothills of the White Mountains. It is approximately long (northwest-southeast) and from wide (northeast-southwest), covering & ...

in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. The site is now in Weirs Beach, a summer resort and village of the city of

Laconia Laconia or Lakonia ( el, Λακωνία, , ) is a historical and administrative region of Greece located on the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparta. The word ''laconic''—to speak in a blunt, c ...

. The Native American village, whose archaeological remains extend for a half mile along the river and a quarter mile along the lake, has been documented through archaeological investigation to have evidence of settlement from 9,000 BCE to the late seventeenth century. Colonial reports document that the site was abandoned substantially in 1696, when most of New Hampshire's remaining native population withdrew to join the Pequawket at present-day

Fryeburg, Maine Fryeburg is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,369 at the 2020 census. Fryeburg is home to Fryeburg Academy, a semi-private preparatory school, and the International Musical Arts Institute. The town is also s ...

. Due to documentation of its use for human settlements, the area has long been of archaeological interest. Portions of the area were investigated formally during 1976 through 1979 by a team from the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

, and in 1977 by

Howard Sargent Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...

, long a leading figure in New Hampshire archaeology, who is noted for his identification of the Hunter Archeological Site that also is in New Hampshire. Finds at the Aquadoctan site yield evidence of habitation back to the Paleo-Indian period (c. 7600 BCE). These finds were located under

Middle Archaic Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek ...

remains, indicating a long period of occupation. The site was one of the first in northern New England to yield evidence of human activity in that

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

time period.Starbuck, pp. 59-61 A section of the village site was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1975.

References

{{NRHP in Belknap County, New Hampshire Pre-historic cities in the United States Geography of Belknap County, New Hampshire Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire Buildings and structures in Laconia, New Hampshire National Register of Historic Places in Belknap County, New Hampshire Native American history of New Hampshire

See also

References