Unearthing Colonial New Hampshire
Photograph by Mike Fillyaw
A Conversation with Archaeologist Alix Martin
Alexandra “Alix” Martin is an archaeologist at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she directs archaeological research and helps bring the region’s early history into view through the material record. She also teaches in the anthropology department at the University of New Hampshire and coordinates Native American and Indigenous Studies.
Alix explores the colonial period in New Hampshire, from the early 1600s through the American Revolution. She looks at the arrival of European settlers, the development of communities along the seacoast, and the daily lives of the people who lived here. Drawing on archaeology, historical documents, and oral history, she offers a fuller understanding of how this period took shape and how it continues to influence the present.
This recording is the second in a series exploring the history of New Hampshire from approximately 12,000 BCE to the present day.
Listen to Alix’s recording here.
The recording is paired with student reflection questions and learning prompts that encourage listeners to explore New Hampshire history through inquiry, observation, and discussion. Together, the recordings and educational materials invite students to consider how geography, culture, work, and the environment have shaped the state across generations, while fostering a deeper connection to place and community.
Story Preservation Initiative’s New Hampshire History series
The series traces the state’s past across many centuries, beginning with its earliest human history and moving forward through periods of profound change.
The series opens with Deep Time, which illuminates the thousands of years before European settlement, when Indigenous communities lived on and understood this land long before written records. This foundational perspective grounds the series in the deep continuity of Indigenous presence and knowledge in the region.
Photograph by David J. Murray/ClearEyePhoto.com
As the series unfolds, the recordings will move the historical timeline forward, examining European settlement, the arrival of enslaved Africans, and transformative forces such as the railroad, which reshaped transportation, industry, and daily life across the state. Further along, the series will explore how industries such as textiles and logging altered both the population and the landscape, and how tourism and recreational ventures capitalized on New Hampshire’s rugged beauty.
Taken together, these stories reveal the layered history of New Hampshire and the long interplay between human endeavor and the natural world, showing how each era has contributed to the state’s evolving identity.
About Story Preservation
Our Mission: Story Preservation Initiative believes in the transformative power of story to connect people around our common humanity and create a better future.
Our Work: We are a leading producer and online distributor of original, content-rich audio-based narratives for K-12 students. SPI stories are the raw materials of history, roadmaps to scientific discovery, and windows to the minds of artists and skilled tradesmen and women.
What We Achieve: SPI brings listeners into personal contact with extraordinary people whose stories engage their hearts and minds, imparting content knowledge and fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking as they open doors to possible career paths in professions associated with the arts, sciences, humanities, and skilled trades. We are fully open-source.
When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.
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