Collection

A Thousand Years of North American Societies

Indigenous cultures were neither uniform across the North American continent nor static over the last thousand years before they met Europeans. These articles highlight the histories of North American societies in the Southwest, Great Plains, and Mississippi River Valley, and the variety of historical sources scholars use to learn about them.

created by Bunk Archivist on November 15, 2023

A drawing of people tending crops and preparing food near mud-covered pit houses.

One Ancient Culture Actually Benefited From 'The Worst Year in Human History'

The challenges of 536 CE, including cold temperatures and volcanic fallout, prompted a flourishing of Ancestral Pueblo society.

by Mike McRae via ScienceAlert on December 3, 2021

Biology: tree rings and food crops reveal the ways agricultural Ancestral Pueblo societies responded to climate change and population pressures in the Southwest ca. 400-550 CE.

Scientists carrying a log by using straps around their heads.

1,000 Years Ago, Ancient Puebloans Built a Mysteriously Vast City. We May Finally Know How.

High up on the Colorado Plateau, in what is today the state of New Mexico, sit the remains of what was once a city of epic proportions.

by Carly Cassella via ScienceAlert on February 27, 2023

Reenactment: to hypothesize about how Ancestral Puebloans built and maintained the massive buildings of Chaco Canyon from ca. 800-1100 CE, scientists tried using the materials and technologies known to be available in the Southwest at that time.

This New Mexico Petroglyph Might Reveal an Ancient Solar Eclipse

In 1097, a Pueblo artist may have etched a rare celestial event into the rock for all of posterity

by Ben Panko via Smithsonian on August 17, 2017

Writing: the Ancestral Pueblo recorded the solar eclipse of 1097 in stone.

Is Colorado Home to an Ancient Astronomical Observatory? The Question Is Testing Archaeological Limits.

Did Ancestral Puebloans watch the skies from Mesa Verde's Sun Temple? Solving its mysteries requires overcoming archaeology’s troubled past.

by David Gilbert via The Colorado Sun on December 19, 2021

Astronomy: can observing the movements of the sun and moon today and measuring alignments with the architecture of Mesa Verde help us understand the calculations the Ancestral Pueblo were making in the 1200s?

Walking Into New Worlds

Native traditions and novel discoveries tell the migration story of the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache.

by Karen Coates via Archaeology Magazine on October 1, 2020

Clothing: oral tradition and craftsmanship style suggest a pair of moccasins from the late 1200s found by the Great Salt Lake were worn by the ancestors of today's Navajo and Apache as they migrated through the area.

Native Americans Managed the Prairie for Better Bison Hunts

Hunter-gatherer societies may have a bigger ecological impact than we thought.

by Kiona N. Smith via Ars Technica on July 25, 2018

Environment: hunting-focused societies on the plains from 1100-1650 did not build cities like their farming counterparts did -- they left their mark on the land by building fires to control the ecology of the region and increase their productivity.

How White Settlers Buried the Truth About the Midwest's Mysterious Mounds

Pioneers and early archeologists preferred to credit distant civilizations, not Native Americans, with building these cities.

by Sarah E. Baires via Zócalo Public Square on February 22, 2018

Debunking: The Misssissippian city of Cahokia thrived between 900-1350. At its height in 1050, it was larger than London, but it was already long reduced to ruins by the time Europeans saw it. The stories white settlers told, and those they could not imagine, obscured our understanding of Mississippian culture for centuries.

Artists' rendering of Cahokia mounds with buildings and people on them.

Finding North America’s Lost Medieval City

Cahokia was bigger than Paris — then it was completely abandoned. I went there to find out why.

by Annalee Newitz via Ars Technica on December 13, 2016

Archaeology: Digging up the soil can help us cut through the myths and learn about Mississippian society, from its urban planning to its religious practices.

Mississippian funerary heads in the collection of Monticello.

“Kicked About”: Native Culture at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello

Kristine K. Ronan describes her discovery of two Native American statues at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

by Kristine K. Ronan via Panorama on October 14, 2017

Art: While Mississippian artifacts can tell us about pre-contact cultures, where those artifacts ended up can tell us about later Americans' interests and blind spots surrounding American Indian histories.

Ancient Poop Reveals What Happened after the Fall of Cahokia

People hunted and raised small farms near the ruins of the ancient city.

by Kiona N. Smith via Ars Technica on January 29, 2020

Chemistry: While they may have stopped maintaining the centralized city of Cahokia, the people who lived there did not just disappear. Chemical traces of human excrement reveal population patterns in the region through 1500.