During the end of the last ice age, 10-12,000 years ago, New England was covered by a large glacier. A huge block of melting ice was so heavy that it formed a depression. Known today as the Frog Pond on Bartlet Mall, this ancient glacial remnant is Newburyport’s most prominent feature of the ice age.

Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers reached southern New England by at least 14,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of at least 16 settlements have been identified between the mouth of Merrimack, or Molodemak (deep river in Abenaki) to the Ipswich River. One of the earliest Paleo-Indian sites uncovered (10,000-8,000 B.C.E.) is “Bull Brook” in Agawam (Ipswich), where caribou were hunted annually. Over a period of 6,500 years (known as the Maritime Archaic period) as the climate warmed, people moved into the area from the Gulfs of St. Lawrence and Maine.

At “Morrill Point” (Salisbury), there is archaeological evidence of Archaic period habitation. By 3,500 years ago (known as the Maritime Woodland period) people arrived from the Great Lakes and Ottawa Valley, populating the coast and river valleys. Archaeological surveys revealed 26 village sites, in a forty mile stretch of the Molodemak, from present day Tyngsboro to Newburyport. A village on the river (Shattuck Farm, Andover) was inhabited for approximately 5,000 years, from the Archaic to late Woodland periods.

Glacial retreat redirected the Molodemak near Pawtucket Falls, a fishing place and Pawtucket village, Wamesit (later Lowell), inhabited for thousands of years prior to European colonization.