Karen Haltunen, professor of history and the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, is one of the leading scholars of American cultural history. Her recent talk at UNH explored the historical connections between geology--the search for New England's ancient earth-history in the rocks and fossils of the region--and the widespread conviction that New England Indians were fast approaching racial "extinction." She spoke as part of the Center for New England Culture's Heritage New Hampshire Lecture Series, which annually presents lectures on the images, people, and places of New England, featuring the best of contemporary scholarship on the region. (Carie Schelfhaudt/Media Relations)