Scenery:

Abstract

Westborough’s key location has attracted people to its waterways, swamps, and hills since before recorded time. As early as 9,000 years ago, prehistoric people in canoes hollowed out from tree trunks followed the Sudbury and Assabet Rivers to their headwaters in Westborough. Here they discovered abundant fish and game, as well as Westborough quartzite, a stone especially suited for making tools and weapons. According to archaeologist Donna Ingham of Public Archaeology Laboratory (PAL), who conducted a 1999 archaeology survey at the Assabet Headwaters Reservation, the Assabet River most likely was formed by a glacial lake that drained about 7,500 to 6,000 years ago into a stream with bordering wetlands.