Adena, Fort Ancient, and Hopewell Eras
Archaeologists have grouped the ancestral cultures of the modern-day federally recognized Shawnee and Miami tribes (among other American Indian nations) who lived in what we now call the Ohio River Valley into the Adena, Hopewell, and Fort Ancient eras.
The people who lived during the Fort Ancient era thrived for 700 years before Europeans arrived, bringing new trade opportunities but also disease, guns, and terror.
Confusingly, the Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve in Warren County, Ohio (now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list) was constructed during the Hopewell era, not the Fort Ancient era.
Ohio's 4th grade curriculum about Shawnee and Myaamia ancestral communities
In this episode, we meet fourth graders learning about the ancestral cultures of the Shawnee and Myaamia for the first time at Lincoln Elementary in Springfield, Ohio. Their teacher is Shelly Silverhorn (Navajo Nation), and their special guest for the day is Talon Silverhorn (Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma).
Silverhorn and all other Ohio fourth-grade teachers must base their lesson plans on Ohio's Grade 4 Social Studies Learning Standards (see page 31), which include:
- "Various groups of people have lived in Ohio over time, including American Indians, migrating settlers, and immigrants. Interactions among these groups have resulted in cooperation, conflict, and compromise."
- "Ongoing conflicts on the Ohio frontier with American Indians and Great Britain contributed to the United States’ involvement in the War of 1812."
Ohio's Social Studies Model Curriculum for Grade 4 provides some guidance for teachers as well (see pages 2-4).
Because of the way Ohio's standards and model curriculum are written, the state's fourth graders tend to learn about American Indians as existing in the past rather than as living, vibrant people connected to their communities, cultures, and land, including here in Ohio.
But that's starting to change.
Starting this school year, fourth graders will be able to visit the interpretive center at Great Council State Park near Xenia. The center's exhibits were designed with input from the three federally recognized Shawnee tribes.
In 2020, the Myaamia Center, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma's collaborative education and research initiative located at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, developed two Myaamia culture and imagery lessons that became part of the K-12 "Ohio as America" curriculum, a resource used by more than 20,000 students in 91 of the state's school districts. Read more about the lessons here.
Community-Engaged Scholarship
Throughout this podcast, we have tried to feature the perspectives of non-Native academics who follow the Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES) model. University of Iowa historian Dr. Stephen Warren, whom you hear in this episode, has done that, spending more than 20 years working collaboratively with the federally recognized Shawnee tribes in Oklahoma. His work includes co-editing a book with Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe, and editing a book about the 19th and 20th-century history of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
