Native People

My words fly through the air, they fly through the air echoing.

Paul Merchant, Cherokee Relics

We have more questions than answers about prehistoric native Americans. We do know that there was human activity in the Blue Ridge region as early as 10,000 B.C. to 8,000 B.C, an age known as the Paleo-Indian period. They probably used spears to hunt mastodons, mammoths and giant ground sloths. Prehistoric societies became more complex and were marked by an increasing command of tools and materials as the Paleo period gave way to the Archaic, followed by the Woodland, the Mississippian and the Historic periods. Many scholars believe that the modern Cherokee tribe evolved over time from the prehistoric cultures that were already in the Blue Ridge area.

Much of the reason for our lack of information about the prehistoric Indians is that the material that survives --- mostly stone tools --- is a very small part of the civilization that produced it. The problem is similar to attempting to reconstruct the life of the average twentieth century American with only his car keys and belt buckle as evidence.

Case One of the Exhibit  |  Case Two of the Exhibit