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Indigenous Peoples

Hip-hop artist Frank Waln contributes a musical performance. From left to right: Musician Frank Waln; panelists Brook Thompson, Dylan Baca, Lina Krueck, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Michaela Pavlat, and Alberto Correa III.

Smithsonian Voices

Five Ideas for Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2020

Honor Native American ideas, make your garden a native ecosystem, read these books, or take in one of these online programs with Native guests

U.S. Representative Deb Haaland offered to stand in for the missing and deceased.

Portrait Project Memorializes Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

A new exhibition available to view online features 94 photographs, as well as original artwork

This Maliwawa Figure shows a kangaroo or similar animal.

New Research

Newly Documented Aboriginal Rock Art Is ‘Unlike Anything Seen Before’

The ancient paintings depict close relationships between humans and animals

A diver off the coast of Sisal, Mexico, investigates the wreck of La Unión in 2017.

Researchers Identify Mexican Wreck as 19th-Century Maya Slave Ship

Spanish traders used the steamboat to transport enslaved Indigenous individuals to Cuba

The Mayflower Autonomous Ship's debut in Plymouth, England, is one of many events marking the 400th anniversary of the original Mayflower's 1620 journey.

An A.I.-Driven ‘Mayflower’ Will Cross the Atlantic Next Year

The autonomous vessel’s launch, originally scheduled to mark the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth, was delayed by the pandemic

Drone images show the location of a council circle found on an ancestral Wichita site in Kansas.

New Research

Drone Imaging Reveals Pre-Hispanic ‘Great Settlement’ Beneath Kansas Ranch

The 164-foot-wide earthwork is the sixth ancestral Wichita “council circle” discovered in the region

Curators removed the tsantsa, or shrunken heads, from display in July.

Oxford Museum Permanently Removes Controversial Display of Shrunken Heads

Citing the exhibit’s reinforcement of “racist and stereotypical thinking,” the Pitt Rivers Museum moved a total of 120 human remains into storage

The newly discovered banana cultivation site

Cool Finds

Traces of 2,000-Year-Old Banana Farm Found in Australia

The discovery contradicts conceptions of early Indigenous peoples as exclusively hunter gatherers

Sipson Island in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, opened to the public on July 25.

Cape Cod Island Opens to the Public for the First Time in 300 Years

When Sipson Island went on the luxury real estate market in 2018, locals saw an opportunity for conservation

Researchers unearthed this bison-bone hoe in Manitoba, Canada.

Cool Finds

Centuries-Old Gardening Hoes Made of Bison Bone Found in Canada

The tools provide evidence that the region’s Indigenous population practiced agriculture pre-European contact

The ʻahu ʻula and mahiole of Kalaniʻōpuʻu on display in the Bishop Museum

Hawaiian Chief’s Cloak and Helmet Repatriated After 241 Years

A New Zealand museum initially returned the artifacts, given to Captain James Cook in 1779, on a long-term loan in 2016

The Maya city of Tikal thrived for hundreds of years but was abandoned in the ninth century A.D.

New Research

Why Did the Maya Abandon the Ancient City of Tikal?

New research suggests mercury and toxic algae poisoned the settlement’s reservoirs

Researchers used these five replica clay pipes to "smoke" tobacco and other native plants.

Early Residents of the Pacific Northwest Smoked Smooth Sumac

Researchers used a new technique to detect the chemical fingerprints of specific plant species in a 1,400-year-old pipe’s residue

This 1846 daguerreotype is likely the oldest surviving photograph of a Māori person.

Newly Discovered Portrait May Be Oldest Known Image of Māori Person

The photo depicts Hemi Pomara, who was kidnapped and “exhibited” by British colonialists in London during the 1840s

A marble statue of Christopher Columbus was beheaded in Boston.

Christopher Columbus Statues Beheaded, Pulled Down Across America

Protesters in three U.S. cities targeted sculptures of the Italian explorer and colonizer

This wall painting features musicians in European clothing on the left and a dancer in a traditional feathered cape on the right.

Cool Finds

Renovations Reveal Rare Maya Murals Hidden in Guatemalan Home

The wall paintings may chart the decline of Spanish colonial influence and resurgence of indigenous culture

Discovered at the Yilbilinji rock shelter in northern Australia's Limmen National Park, the drawings are between 400 and 500 years old.

Cool Finds

Rare Form of Miniature Stenciled Rock Art Found in Australia

New research suggests the small-scale illustrations may have been made with beeswax

Choctaw and Irish dancers at a 2017 dedication ceremony of a sculpture commemorating the 1847 donation

Covid-19

Irish Return Historic Favor by Donating to Native Americans During Pandemic

In 1847, the Choctaw Nation sent $170—more than $5,000 today—to victims of the Irish potato famine

A pickup truck collided with a moai statue and platform on Eastern Island.

After Truck Topples Easter Island Statue, Mayor Calls for Traffic Restrictions

The incident, which happened over the weekend, remains under investigation but may have involved faulty brakes

An artist’s depiction of Gunakadeit joseeae

215-Million-Year-Old, Sharp-Nosed Sea Creature Was Among the Last of Its Kind

Researchers gave the marine reptile the genus name Gunakadeit in honor of a sea monster from Tlingit oral history

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