Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series - Part II: Kentucky's Ancient American Indian History, as Told Through Franklin County's Archaeology

After laying to rest the myths that continue to circulate about Kentucky’s ancient Native Peoples, this presentation will discuss Native history prior to the arrival of non-Native people, paying particular attention to information collected from Franklin County’s archaeological sites. Aspects of Native American lifeways that will be considered include subsistence and technology, exchange, and domestic and ritual activities - and how they changed through time. Franklin County’s Native history is the story of adaptive, resilient, creative peoples whose descendants still live in our state.

Dr. Gwynn Henderson, a native of southern Delaware, has been interested in old things, dinosaurs, and in being an archaeologist since she was young. She received her B.A. (1975) in Anthropology from the University of Delaware, and her M.A. (1982) and Ph.D. (1998) in Anthropology from the University of Kentucky (UK). She is the Education Director for the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, a program of Western Kentucky University's Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology. 

An archaeologist who researches ancient Native people, Gwynn has carried out field research in Kentucky, the Ohio Valley, Tennessee, and Mexico. She is interested in researching the lifeways of Indigenous farming cultures of the Ohio Valley and the history of mid-18th century Native groups in that region. She has written, presented, and published many professional reports and papers describing the results of her research, and with David Pollack, directed the University of Kentucky undergraduate field school in archaeology for four years. With David Pollack, she received the Ida Lee Willis Memorial Award in 2014 for lifetime achievement in research, education, and preservation. She is a member of the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission. 

As an archaeology educator and public archaeologist, she works with archaeologists, teachers, and museum educators to develop content, lessons, booklets, video programs, radio spots, exhibits, and workshops that make information about Kentucky’s rich archaeological heritage accessible to a wide audience. She and colleagues have researched the effectiveness of Kentucky public archaeology programs and published on how archaeology can best be used to help school children learn about the past. In 2023, she received the Society for American Archaeology’s Distinguished Achievement in Public Archaeology award. She is a member of the Living Archaeology Weekend Steering Committee, and serves as a facilitator for Project Archaeology, the Kentucky Master Naturalist program, and PrimeTime Family Reading.

Gwynn earned diplomas in writing for children from the Institute of Children’s Literature in 2009 and 2020. Her book for adult literacy students, Kentuckians Before Boone, has been used in Kentucky’s elementary school classrooms. A freelance writer of children’s nonfiction, her articles have been published in dig Magazine, Dig Into History, ASK, Cobblestone, Kentucky Humanities for Kids, and with Schoolwide, Inc.