Virtual Lecture – The History Saga of Humans and the Environment at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

This story is about strategic location on a great estuary, human interactions with rich natural resources, and the founding history of the United States. It is an evolving story built around the science of archaeology and the inferences of oral and written history for the 2,650-acre campus of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), 5 miles south of Annapolis and 25 miles east of Washington, DC. It relies upon volunteer citizen scientists who have been piecing together a fabric of place and time that is entirely local, yet it forms a quilt of context for America today.

The story extends back 3,000 years to the earliest people who gathered oysters from the Bay and developed an elaborate culture here, and it continues to the present with surprising new discoveries almost weekly. It is filled with intriguing characters and deeds of all kinds – war heroes and bravery, horrible acts of genocide and enslavement, tremendous resilience of character, acts of great generosity and good luck, pirates and farmers, philanthropists and eccentric scientists, and ordinary people who lived here through the centuries and built the diversity of the American experience.

At the core of the story are two families who lived on the property for nearly 300 years: the Sellmans, who first built on the site in 1735 and lived for most of 200 years in a house that SERC is now restoring, and which is the oldest in-situ building in the Smithsonian Institution, and the Kirkpatrick-Howats, who farmed and forested the land as stewards for nearly 100 years, and who were pivotal to establishing SERC. Living amongst and adjacent to these families are the Black families of slaves and freed people who created parallel cultures and institutions of pride. This story is accessible to all through the Smithsonian.

Registration Required.

Cost: Free