GREENFIELD — As the archaeological search for artifacts from the Great Falls Massacre continues, landowners and interested residents are being invited to a question and answer session to learn more about the ongoing work.

The meeting, hosted by the Greenfield Historical Commission, will be held on Monday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. at the John Zon Community Center. Archaeologists from Heritage Consultants, who are contracted to do the work, as well as members of the local American Battlefield Protection Program Advisory Board will be present to answer questions.

Over the past few weeks, archaeologists associated with Heritage Consultants of Berlin, Connecticut have been gaining permission from private landowners to collect 17th-century artifacts along the final stretch of the Great Falls Massacre’s colonial retreat route. The work is part of a near decade-long effort to study “how and why this particular battle precipitated a shift in the military strategy and war efforts of Indigenous and colonial groups, and how those changes contributed to the foundation of this country,” according to the project narrative. This phase of the project, centering around the retreat route of colonial forces, is the last of three intended to round out the focus area.

According to the Nolumbeka Project, an Indigenous history and culture preservation nonprofit, the Great Falls Massacre of May 19, 1676 is considered the major turning point of King Philip’s War, when 300 women, children and elders were killed during a surprise pre-dawn attack led by Capt. William Turner. Ten years after the reconciliation ceremony of 2004, during which the town of Montague and members of the Narragansett Tribe formally recognized the conflict, four Indigenous tribes and Historical Commission members from five municipalities began doing pre-inventory research and documentation relative to the massacre.

Over the next nine years, the Battlefield Grant Advisory Committee completed two grant-funded phases of land surveying and artifact recovery. This third phase serves to “document battlefield actions and investigate areas of the battlefield that were not surveyed or examined during previous battlefield surveys,” according to Heritage Consultants’ proposal. The project narrative states 3.5 square miles of the 6.5-square-mile battlefield remains to be surveyed following the project’s first two phases. More than 600 artifacts were recovered over the 350 acres that have already been surveyed.

“Evidence of those firefights, in the form of musket balls, have been found stretching from Riverside in Gill to Greenfield,” Historical Commission member Tim Blagg, who represents Greenfield on the intermunicipal advisory committee, wrote in a statement. “Other artifacts, including firearm parts and personal objects, have also been retrieved.”

Kevin McBride of Heritage Consultants, who is leading the archaeological project, has been focusing the search in the area of Meridian Street over the past two weeks. The search started off slow, he said.

“There’s a lot of junk in these backyards,” he said, approximating that just one out of every 100 six-inch holes dug yields a musket ball.

But then, things got exciting with the discovery of a cluster of musket balls at 94 Meridian St. on Wednesday. In just a couple of hours at the property, McBride’s crew had detected and excavated five musket balls, making up a cluster that could be indicative of a skirmish.

“It almost looks like there is a linear pattern, but I don’t know if that’s just an accident,” he said. “Once we start connecting all the dots and start doing all the other properties, hopefully we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.