Cherie Haury-Artz, education assistant at the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist is participating as one of the featured speakers at the 2026 Iowa Prairie Network Winter Seminar in Ames, Iowa, Saturday, January 24, 8:30am-5:45pm. One of nine talks and panels, Cherie's presentation is on Native Americans of the Great Plains and will take place at 3:00pm (see talk description below).

Registration is required for this free event. Participants can optionally pay for a catered lunch with registration before January 16.

Native Americans on the Great Plains

When Europeans first arrived on the Great Plains, they believed that they saw a pristine landscape “inhabited only by wandering tribes”. Of course, this was wrong. Native Americans have been living on the Great Plains for at least 20,000 years and have been creating their own physical landscapes and controlling natural resources for centuries. Their way of life was well adapted to the grassland environment and their intimate understanding of the plants and animals allowed them to thrive adapting to environmental and cultural changes through the centuries. The intimate relationship with the land and its resources is still embedded in belief systems and practices of many modern Indigenous peoples and some environmental researchers have begun to take traditional ecological knowledge and other forms of Indigenous knowledge into consideration in land and natural resources management. This program will survey archaeological and ethnographic research to discuss some of these adaptations through time.