Native Americans have a RICH HISTORY in the Central Susquehanna Valley. Too often, local histories start with the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But Native American stories began more than 15,000 years ago, when early adventurers arrived in North America. Native American history, although hard to pinpoint precisely, lies at the heart of the Valley’s cultural heritage.  

We know much of this heritage by digging. Archeologists discovered Paleoindian sites in Pennsylvania through evidence of Clovis culture. Paleoindians in the CSV were skilled hunters who used fine, leaf-shaped stone points to kill large animals. The Paleoindian period closed with the end of the Ice Age and a rapidly changing climate.

In a new environment, people needed new ways to hunt … and new tools. Paleoindians began hunting smaller game, fishing, and gathering plants. About 3,000 years ago, in what scholars call the Woodland Period, they pushed their technology further and established trade networks. Hints of all of this activity come to us through the objects they left behind.

One legacy of the Woodland Period is the eel or fish weir. Native Americans built these V-shaped structures in rivers and creeks by stacking rocks. They used weirs to capture fish and eels. The weir’s point, facing downstream, funneled the animals. People with stakes or baskets could then catch them with relative ease.  

It’s hard to tell the age of stone weirs, but archaeologists estimate that Native Americans used them for thousands of years. Van Wagner, a science teacher and performer from Danville, compares the weirs to the Great Pyramids of Giza, which were built around 2500 B.C. Today, these weirs are clear and present in the Susquehanna River. If you float down the river, you’ll catch a glimpse of this precious history. Satellite images show a series of weirs in the river just south of town (at the southern tip of the Isle of Que).  

Fast-forward to the 1600s.

The Susquehannock people were a prominent community in the Susquehanna Valley. They had come from regions farther north, in what is now upstate New York. They used the river for sustenance and transportation. Around this time, Europeans arrived, changing and challenging traditional patterns along the river. Social disruption, economic dependence, colonization, political conflicts—this became the new normal.

The following timeline guides you through two centuries of change, showing the slow eradication of local Native populations and ways of life.

The Susquehannocks were a mighty, enigmatic tribe who dominated the valley of the Susquehanna River.

This is how John Smith’s described the Susquehannock people after his initial contact in 1608. The Powhatan, who lived on the coastal plains of Virginia, also knew the Susquehannocks, whom they described them as “a fierce nation that did eat men.” However, scholars reject the idea that the Susquehannocks were giants. Instead, archaeological evidence shows that their stature was relatively small. Skeletal remains discovered at one site show an average height of 5′ 4″. The timeline above shows that the Susquehannocks were not giants or cannibals. They were people living during a time of change, ravaged by disease and violence.  

The historian Nicole Eustace notes that what is now central Pennsylvania was once a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures. Eustace writes, “Words in many tongues echo across the Susquehanna Valley. Two broad linguistic families, Algonquian and Iroquoian, categorize the major groups; from them branch many languages and peoples.”

The label Sasquesahanocks, which later became Susquehannock, originates from the Algonquin speaking Tockwoghs, whom John Smith stayed with in the early seventeenth century. The Lenape called them Minquas, meaning “treacherous,” a reflection of the raids Susquehannocks made on the Lenape in the seventeenth century. The name Minqua was also adopted by the Dutch and the Swedes. French Jesuits living among the Huron called them Andaste or Gandastogues, meaning “people of the black ridge pole.” Gandastogues then became anglicized to Conestogas in the eighteenth century. The Algonquian-speaking people of Virginia and Maryland called the tribe the Sasquesahanough, meaning “people of the muddy river.”

Despite these multiple names, we don’t know what they called themselves.  

The Susquehannocks spoke an Iroquoian language, which was poorly preserved. The word Susquehanna is said to be an Algonquian word, with the suffix “-hanna” meaning a stream or river. In addition, there are claims that Susquehanna was a corruption of the Susquehannock word Queischachgekhanne, meaning “the long reach river.” Other speculated meanings of the word include “long crooked river,” or “place of the straight river,” based on a translation of the Delaware word Saskwihanang.