Native American History

Likenesses of American Indians have been used to sell everything from cigars to station wagons.

Probing the Paradoxes of Native Americans in Pop Culture

A new exhibition picks apart the cultural mythologies surrounding the first “Americans”

A scientific illustration of the Upward Sun River camp in what is now Interior Alaska.

Genetics Rewrites the History of Early America—And, Maybe, the Field of Archaeology

The genome of an infant from Upward Sun River, Alaska offers tantalizing insight into the story of human migration

Jimi Hendrix was “a central figure in the history of African-American music,” says Kevin Strait, a historian and curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, home to this gold-brocade vest that the musician wore.

Gone at 27 and Eternally Youthful For the Ages, Jimi Hendrix Would Have Been 75 This Year

A gold-brocade vest at the Smithsonian evokes the innovative musician’s enduring legacy

Pleito cave site

Virtual Reality Is Allowing Us To See Some of the World’s Most Inaccessible Archaeological Sites

A Native American tribe in California got a chance to reconnect with its past through virtual reality models of sacred sites

The Ten Best History Books of 2017

From presidential biographies to a look at the long rise of fake news, these picks will surely interest history buffs

Graduate Fernando Yazzie after the ceremony at Navajo Technical University.

The Importance of Graduating in the Navajo Way

Education in traditional knowledge, as well as global issues, form the foundation of this Navajo Nation university

A pod of dolphins swim along a boat in the Channel Islands National Park, California

What Archaeologists and Historians Are Finding About the Heroine of a Beloved Young Adult Novel

New scholarship reveals details about the Native American at the center of the classic <em>Island of the Blue Dolphins</em>

Ancient Orca Geoglyph Rediscovered in Peru

Found on a hillside in the Palpa desert, the 200-foot image was likely made by peoples of the Paracas and Nazca cultures

A square dance on Skyline Farms in Alabama, circa 1937.

Square Dancing is Uniquely American

Like the culture it came from, square dance has roots in European, Native American and African practices

Archaeologists Date Pre-Hispanic Puerto Rican Rock Art for the First Time

A new analysis looks at the thousands of images found in caves on Mona Island, a spiritual hub for the Taino culture

A signpost from Standing Rock is now in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

Signpost From Standing Rock, Now in the Smithsonian Collections, Shows the Power of Solidarity

A new addition to the National Museum of the American Indian links current events to a long and problematic history

The Russian Orthodox Church in Igiugig

In Emotional Homecoming, Smithsonian Repatriates 24 Sets of Human Remains

Collected by an anthropologist in 1931, the National Museum of Natural History returned the bones to the village of Igiugig

A residential school in Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories.

Records of Residential School Abuse Can Be Destroyed, Canadian Supreme Court Rules

The federal government wanted to retain the documents, but survivors said they were promised confidentiality

Canoe Churned up by Irma May Date to the 1600s

Radiocarbon dating shows the dugout canoe found in Cocoa, Florida, has a 50 percent chance of being from 1640 to 1680

The replica (left) and original were first displayed together at the 2012 clan conference in Sitka, Alaska.

This Replica of a Tlingit Killer Whale Hat Is Spurring Dialogue About Digitization

Collaboration between museums and indigenous groups provides educational opportunities, archival documentation—and ethical dilemmas

Monty Claw with a section of his jewelry works.

Meet the Artists Displaying at This Year’s Santa Fe Indian Market, the Largest Juried Native Art Show in the World

The annual show brings together some of the country’s best traditional and contemporary artists

This Pueblo rock carving in New Mexico might represent a remarkable solar eclipse dating back to 1097.

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

Students of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

U.S. Army To Return Remains of Three Native Boys Who Died at Assimilation School

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded by a military officer who wanted to “kill the Indian … [and] save the man in him”

Pocahontas Redefined How Europeans Saw Native Americans

Prior to the arrival of Pocahontas in England, indigenous people of the Americas were viewed as cannibals, brutish, and non-Christian

Images of Yosemite, like this one taken circa 1865, helped increase public appetite for the park.

Lincoln's Signature Laid the Groundwork for the National Park System

The "Yo-Semite Valley" was made a California state park on this day in 1864, but it quickly became a national park

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