November is Native American heritage month. It originated when George H. W. Bush signed a Congressional Joint Resolution establishing the month and called upon governments, interested groups, organizations, and the people of the United States to observe the month. Every subsequent president has affirmed the proclamation.
A few interesting facts about Montana Native American history that you may not know are as follows:
Montana is home to one of the largest collections of pictographs and petroglyphs anywhere in North America. There is a sight called Bear Gulch near Lewistown that has over 1,200 distinct features. Some of which are approximately 2000 years old.
Montana is also home to the largest collection of Clovis artifacts in the world. The Clovis culture is a prehistoric culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools. The artifacts were found in Montana’s Shield Valley in the 1960s along with fossilized bones of a small child estimated to be about 12,500 years old. The site has helped to shape our understandings of the first Montanans as well as American Indians as a whole.
