September 25, 2025
Reserve Your Spot for Upcoming Public Programs:
To register for the upcoming program, please email: NCTC-Lecture-Series@fws.gov. Be sure to include the program date in the subject or memo line, and list the names of all attending adults in the body of your message. Children’s names are not required.
On Thursday September 25 at 7:00 pm ET the NCTC Conservation Lecture Series presents “First People of the Shenandoah & Potomac Watersheds” with Professor Carol Nash in the Byrd Auditorium at the National Conservation Training Center, 698 Conservation Way, Shepherdstown, WV.
What was life like in this region before the first Europeans arrived - how did the Natives live and what clues do we have? First People of the Shenandoah and Potomac Watersheds reviews the information gathered from the many documented Native American archaeological sites in western Virginia and the West Virginia Panhandle, with a focus on the importance of the Shenandoah-Potomac confluence. Covering 15,000 years, from the end of the Ice Age to the time of European settlement, the story of the ancestors of the First People challenges us to think about what it means to be Native to a place.
Dr. Carole Nash is a Professor in the School of Integrated Sciences, James Madison University, where she has taught for 37 years. Her research focuses on the Piedmont, Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley, specializing in Native American archaeology and environmental history. She is the author of many technical reports, scholarly papers, and publications, including co-author of Middle Atlantic Prehistory: Foundations and Practice. She is President of the non-profit Mountain Valley Archaeology which partners with communities on archaeological and historical research in upland Virginia. She co-directs the Virginia Archaeological Certification Program, a citizen science initiative that partners professional and avocational archaeologists.
“Native Americans of the Shenandoah Valley” with Carole Nash, Professor, James Madison University
7:00 pm – Public Lecture - Byrd Auditorium
October 2, 2025: 2:00 pm ET – Broadcast at: https://www.youtube.com/@usfws/streams
