About 8500 BCE, in the Columbia Plateau region, the Windust phase began to replace Clovis. Clovis spear points, with their characteristic flute, were replaced with leaf-shaped and stemmed points. Archaeologist James Keyser, in his book Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau, writes: “Living in the numerous rock shelters throughout the central Columbia Plateau, and … Continued
The Inuit are a Native American people whose homelands are in the Canadian Arctic. A special exhibit at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, featured The Inuit Art of Povungnituk. Povungnituk is a village on the eastern shores of Hudson Bay in Arctic Quebec. This artwork provides some insights into the … Continued
One gallery in the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, is dedicated to The Secret Life of an Artifact. This display provides a behind-the-scenes look at the museum collection and the science and creativity that goes in to preserving and interpreting artifacts. One of the displays in this gallery looked at American … Continued
The Southeastern Woodlands is an area which is bounded by the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands of Arkansas and Missouri and the dry plains of eastern Texas on the west and the low plateaus of Kentucky and Tennessee and the interior plains of Illinois on the north. The eastern boundary is the Atlantic Ocean and southern boundary is … Continued
In major museums, only a small fraction of the artifacts held by the museum are on display and interpreted for the public. Most of the museum’s artifacts are in vaults where they are available only to researchers. The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History maintains a Visible Vault in which visitors can view hundreds … Continued
The Cahuilla homeland in California was bounded on the north by the San Bernardino Mountains; on the south by the northern Borrego Desert; on the east by the Colorado Desert; on the west by the present-day city of Riverside. The map shown above shows Cahuilla territory in relationship to other Southern California Indian nations. While … Continued
The Maryhill Museum located near Goldendale, Washington, has a display of Plateau beadwork. The Plateau Culture Area is the area between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Western Montana. From north to south it runs from the Fraser River in the north to the Blue Mountains in … Continued
The East Benton County Museum in Kennewick, Washington, has a number of American Indian artifacts from the Plateau culture area on display. The East Benton County Museum is shown above. Shown above are some examples of bead and shell necklaces and beadwork. The photograph above shows Indians fishing on the Columbia River before the dams … Continued
The Artic Culture Area includes the Aleutian Islands, most of the Alaska Coast, the Canadian Artic, and parts of Greenland. It is an area which can be described as a “cold” desert. Geographer W. Gillies Ross, in his chapter in North American Exploration. Volume 3: A Continent Comprehended, writes: “The North American Arctic is usually … Continued
In providing a broad overview of the hundreds of distinct American Indian cultures found in North America, it is common for museums, historians, archaeologists, and ethnologists to use a culture area model. This model is based on the observation that different groups of people living in the same geographic area often share many cultural features. … Continued
