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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

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Eastern Siouan culture area of North America
Eastern Siouan culture area of North America
Distribution of Siouan-speaking peoples in eastern North America (based on James Mooney's The Siouan Tribes of the East, 1894).
Format: image/map
About the Archaeology Primer
In Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer, page 1
The Occaneechi Indians were once prominent in the Virginia and Carolina Piedmont. As their numbers were reduced by clashes with European colonists, they retreated to a village on the Eno River. Their numbers further dwindled due to disease and warfare, and by 1730 the Occaneechi were all but gone. In 1983, archaeologists discovered a village site near Hillsborough, North Carolina. Through a series of digs, they confirmed that they had found Occaneechi Town.
Format: article
"Native Carolinians" additional activities
In Two worlds: Educator's guide, page 2.10
These lessons from the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology's Intrigue of the Past can be used as additional activities for the digital history textbook module "Two Worlds: Prehistory, Contact, and the Lost Colony."
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Town Creek palisade and guard tower
Town Creek palisade and guard tower
At Town Creek, visitors enter through a guard tower built into the palisade surrounding the town. The palisade — a walled enclosure protecting the town — was made of vertical logs held together with a mixture of clay and straw. When Town Creek...
Format: image/photograph
Classification and attributes
In Intrigue of the Past, page 1.7
In their study of classification and attributes, students will use “doohickey kits” to classify objects based on their attributes, and explain that scientists and specifically archaeologists use classification to help answer research questions.
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 Social Studies)
A comprehensive study of North Carolina Indian tribes
Students will apply their research skills of gathering and validating information to study the eight state recognized American Indian tribes of North Carolina in order to create an Honors U.S. History Project. Students then will create a comprehensive study of those tribes to be compiled into a notebook to be copied and shared with the eighth grade teachers of North Carolina History in our county.
Format: lesson plan (grade 11–12 Social Studies)
Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum
Take a field trip to the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum and learn about the history and people of Columbus County.
Format: article/field trip opportunity
Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer
Republished with permission from the Research Laboratories of Archaeology, the Archaeology Primer uses photographs of the excavations at Occaneechi Town to introduce fundamental concepts of archaeology. The primer provides an introduction to the methods of archaeology and to some common types of artifacts, and prepares students to participate in an electronic archaeological dig.
Format: slideshow (multiple pages)
Indian Museum of the Carolinas
This Native American museum features the Indians of the past, present day Indian groups and Indians of North America.
Format: article/field trip opportunity
A Siouan village
In Intrigue of the Past, page 4.6
In their study of an excavated village site, students will record observations about a site feature and infer how past peoples used individual features and the site as a whole. They will also summarize how archaeologists use observation and inference to determine past lifeways.
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 Social Studies)
Intrigue of the Past
Lesson plans and essays for teachers and students explore North Carolina's past before European contact. Designed for grades four through eight, the web edition of this book covers fundamental concepts, processes, and issues of archaeology, and describes the peoples and cultures of the Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods.
Format: book (multiple pages)
Language families
In Intrigue of the Past, page 4.7
Students will identify and locate the three language families of contact period North Carolina and calculate the physical area covered by each language family.
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 and 8 Mathematics and Social Studies)
Lumbee English
In Teaching about North Carolina American Indians, page 3.1
Introduction Linguist Walt Wolfram, a professor at North Carolina State University says, “The Lumbee English dialect bears the imprint of the early colonization by the English, Highland Scots, and Scots-Irish. Moreover, Lumbee American Indians’...
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 and 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Gazelia Carter.
Shadows of a people
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 2.3
Archaeologists divide North Carolina's prehistory -- the time before contact with Europeans -- into four periods: Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian.
Format: article
The fate of North Carolina's native peoples
In Colonial North Carolina, page 3.8
After the Tuscarora War (1711–1713) and Yamasee War (1715–1716), only the Cherokee among North Carolina's native peoples remained intact. The Coastal Plain and Piedmont were effectively cleared for European settlement.
Format: article
By David Walbert.
Shadows of North Carolina's past
In Intrigue of the Past, page 4.2
Students will infer past Native American lifeways based on observation, construct a timeline of four major culture periods in Native American history, and compare these lifeways and discuss how they are different and alike.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
"The difference is about our land": Cherokees and Catawbas
In Revolutionary North Carolina, page 4.1
During the American Revolution, American Indians living in North Carolina had to choose whether to support England or the colonists. While different groups of Indians made different decisions, most made their choices based on how they thought they could best protect their lands.
Format: article
By Jim L. Sumner.
Peoples of the Coastal Plain
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 2.6
When Europeans arrived in the late 1500s, North Carolina’s northern Coastal Plain was home to two different cultures. Speakers of Algonkian languages lived closest to the Atlantic edge, in the Outer Coastal Plain or Tidewater. Iroquoian speakers lived more inland, on the Inner Coastal Plain. Based on the distinctive items each group left, archaeologists call the Algonkian speakers Colington and the Iroquoian speakers Cashie.
Format: article
The village farmers
In Intrigue of the Past, page 3.5
North Carolina sat on a crossroads by AD 1000. Cultural ideas from other places breezed through it and around it: how to decorate pottery, how to orient political and social life, how to honor the dead, how to structure towns.