You’ve now stepped back in time and into Nowashe Village.
Nowashe Village is set during the Woodland Period, which began about 3,000 years ago and ended at what’s referred to as the “Contact Period,” when colonists permanently began to settle in New England.
We know from the archaeological record that this area was repeatedly inhabited for thousands of years. Now referred to as the South Windsor meadows, this was the home to the Podunk (or Nowaas), a tribal nation within a close-knit group of “River Tribes” in central Connecticut. They called their home “Nowashe,” an Algonquian term meaning “place between two rivers,” referring to the area between the Podunk River to the south and the Scantic River to the north.
The environment in the Woodland Period was very much like it is today, full of a variety of Flora and Fauna and extremely Fertile, nutrient-rich soil in which agriculture thrived for thousands of years and still does today. As a result, the South Windsor meadows have been the site of frequent archaeological “surface finds,” when an Artifact is easily found in the top levels of the ground. More than 20,000 Indigenous artifacts are now displayed, cared for and used for educational purposes at Wood Memorial Library & Museum.
