You'll be unsurprised to learn that my favorite exhibit at the McClung Museum was the Native American wing. Not only is this one of my favorite topics to learn about, but the exhibit was also based on archaeological sites and artifacts from Tennessee, making the information very close to home.

I particularly enjoyed the way exhibit creators focused on how-we-know as well as what-we-know. For example, from the exhibit above: "Corn was ground into meal using mortars and pounders of stone or wood. Archaeologists think women did the work. Why? The repeated motion caused their arm bones to become thicker and stronger than those of Archaic Period women --- a change not seen in men."

Or, more succinctly, take a look at the coprolite to the left. Yes, that's fossilized human poop used to analyze our ancestors' diets. I'd heard of coprolites before, but had never thought of them in relation to our own species. I mean, how exactly does human excrement become fossilized?

Much of the rest of the Native American agriculture exhibit contained information I'd read previously in books like 1491 and in more scholarly texts or at museums like Sunwatch. But I was particularly taken by one map (not shown here) that focused on North American cucurbits.

Guess which type of currently cultivated squash evolved very close to where we now farm? The crookneck squash...which just happens to be the one summer squash I find easy to grow organically in our bug- and fungus-rich environment.

Of course, the exhibit wasn't all about field corn and summer squash. There were plenty of cultural tidbits as well, such as clay figurines like the one above and ornaments like the one shown to the left. Interestingly, the pendant is supposed to represent the Cherokee myth of the water "spider," which brought fire on its back across the water from gods to humans.

I put "spider" in quotes in the previous paragraph because, from the image, I think this particular pendant actually represents a water strider. Yes, both water spiders and water striders do exist. Of the two, I think the latter is more likely to carry fire over long distances since they skim rather than scurry across the water.

There were other fascinating artifacts, too, like this 32-foot-long canoe that was found drifting in the Tennessee River. Mark and I both scratched our heads over the ungainliness of such a tremendous vessel until I decided it must have been used like a Uhaul moving van. My guess will have to stand since the exhibit gave no indication of the canoe's real use.

Overall, the McClung Museum's "Archaeology & Native Peoples of Tennessee" exhibit may be the best I've seen on the topic. I only wish I'd skipped the Mayans so we could have hit the room with my brain fully fresh. In fact, if it wasn't such a schlep to get to Knoxville, I would have used up all of my museum brainpower on that one room alone. If you're in the area, I highly recommend giving it a try!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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