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Native American History

A squash seedling (though not one of the ancient squash)

Cool Finds

An Ancient Squash Dodges Extinction Thanks to the Efforts of Native Americans

Indigenous people carefully tended an ancient squash for thousands of years and now the seeds are seeing a resurgence in popularity

Andrew Jackson's official White House portrait by Ralph E.W. Earl.

What the Politics of Andrew Jackson’s Era Can Tell Us About Today

NPR correspondent Steve Inskeep speaks about his book Jacksonland and what it says about America’s democratic tradition

A trowel placed in a Native American oyster midden that dates to about 1,000 years ago shows the relative size of the shells. The average size of modern oysters is significantly smaller.

How Big Were Oysters in the Chesapeake Before Colonization?

A new multidisciplinary study reveals that yes, oysters were larger and more plentiful before European contact

A family photo taken near Noatak, Alaska

Cool Finds

An Archive of Native Americans Portraits Taken a Century Ago Spurs Further Exploration

Edward S. Curtis’ photography is famous, but contemporary Native American artists go beyond stereotypes

Neil Puckett, a Texas A&M University graduate student, surfaces with the limb bone of a juvenile mastodon.

Underwater Finds Reveal Humans’ Long Presence in North America

Stone tools and mastodon remains help show that the Americas were peopled more than 14,000 years ago

Archaeologists look for pieces of metal in their search for the remains of a massacre of Native Americans in 1863 in Idaho.

The Search Is On for the Site of the Worst Indian Massacre in U.S. History

At least 250 Shoshone were killed by the Army in the 1863 incident, but their remains have yet to be found

A club from Massachusetts in the shape of a fish, probably Atlantic sturgeon, dates to about 1750. The area was previously thought to have only one language at the time of European contact, but new research reveals there were five Native American languages were spoken in the Connecticut Valley of central Massachusetts.

Five Lost Languages Rediscovered in Massachusetts

Smithsonian linguist Ives Goddard finds that the Native Americans of central Massachusetts spoke five languages instead of one

Five tribes fought for 20 years to have Kennewick Man recognized as Native American.

Trending Today

Over 9,000 Years Later, Kennewick Man Will Be Given a Native American Burial

Five Native American nations will join together to bury his remains

Chester Medicine Crow (Apsáalooke, Crow) and his grandfather Joe Medicine Crow (Apsáalooke, Crow)

Remembering Dr. Joe Medicine Crow

He showed us we are capable of great things when we look within ourselves, says scholar Nina Sanders

An Incan mummy found at Mount Llullaillaco, Argentina, in 1999, which was used in the study

New Research

What Mummy DNA Reveals About the Spread and Decline of People in the Americas

Researchers have pieced together how humans spread from Alaska to Argentina and the extent of devastation from the introduction of European disease

Measuring human skulls in physical anthropology

When Museums Rushed to Fill Their Rooms With Bones

In part fed by discredited and racist theories about race, scientists and amateurs alike looked to human remains to learn more about themselves

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Is the Earthworm Native to the United States and More Questions From Readers

You asked, we answered

An engraving showing the Pequot War

Cool Finds

Colonial America Depended on the Enslavement of Indigenous People

The role of enslaving Native Americans in early American history is often overlooked

The official seal of the village of Whitesboro, New York.

Trending Today

New York Village Votes to Keep Official Seal Depicting a White Settler Strangling a Native American

It’s a story that might as well have been ripped from a plotline on “Parks and Recreation”

Indians with Umbrellas, 1971.

How Native American Artist Fritz Scholder Forever Changed the Art World

An exhibit in Denver looks at why we should all be grateful that Scholder broke his word

The trailhead to Supai Village, part of the vast Grand Canyon area. Supai is the only the human settlement within the Grand Canyon.

Visit the Only Village Inside the Grand Canyon

Supai is so remote, mail is delivered by mule train

Archeologists working at the Upward Sun River site in Alaska, where they found the 11,500-year-old remains of two infants

New Research

Ice Age Babies Buried in Alaska Reveals Early Genetic Diversity in North America

The infants’ DNA shows that humans may have stayed near the Bering Strait for thousands of years before moving farther south

A bowl done in a style first seen around A.D. 1100 has “acid blooms” on its interior—imperfections suggesting that someone used modern soaps to clean the bowl up, possibly to fetch a higher price on the black market.

An Exclusive Look at the Greatest Haul of Native American Artifacts, Ever

In a warehouse in Utah, federal agents are storing tens of thousands of looted objects recovered in a massive sting

A statue of Junipero Serra, Catholicism's newest saint, stands in front of San Gabriel Arcángel, the California mission he founded in 1771.

Why Are Native Groups Protesting Catholicism’s Newest Saint?

Nearly 250 years after Junipero Serra founded California’s first missions, questions linger about his legacy

1,000 years ago, Native Americans in the Southwest likely traded for cacao beans from far-away parts of Mexico and South America.

New Research

Early Americans Went to Great Lengths to Get Caffeine

Pottery shards reveal 1,000-year-old traces of caffeine in places where it wasn’t readily available

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