Kentucky - A Native Presence

Kentucky - A Native Presence (Open to the general public)

Monday March 10, 2025 | 7:00pm – Young 113

Kentucky’s landscape holds the history of its ancient Indigenous peoples. Ancient Native villages, camps, mounds, and earthworks - and the patterns of objects within these places - are the chapters in a history that goes back millennia. In this talk, Education Director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey Dr. A. Gwynn Henderson will discuss how understanding this enduring Native presence offers significance to otherwise familiar places, and builds for us meaningful connections to the collective human history of this place we call “home.” This presentation will begin with a review of the stubbornly persistent myths about Kentucky’s historic Native peoples, and will explain how the study of ancient Native places and objects can provide a window into the past. After briefly outlining the main eras in Kentucky’s Native history before the arrival of European settlers, this presentation will consider two examples of Kentucky Native place-making in central Kentucky that reflect the deep human connections to the land and natural environment they represent.