Paleoindian Discoveries in America
Presented by Brad Lepper, Senior Archaeologist, World Heritage Program, Ohio History Connection. The Paleoindian discovery America was the last great human migration into an unpeopled world. It is the foundation of all that came after it across the Indigenous Americas. Archaeologists are still seeking the answers to many of the most important questions about this first chapter in American history. When did people first arrive in this hemisphere? How did these people so quickly occupy and adapt to the many varied environments of North and South America? What effect did the arrival of humans have on the many large species of mammals living across these two continents? The answers to these and other questions will be explored in this presentation.
Brad Lepper is the Senior Archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection’s World Heritage Program and an occasional Visiting Assistant Professor at Denison University. Dr. Lepper earned his PhD from the Ohio State University. His areas of specialization include the earliest ancestors of America’s Indigenous people who first entered this continent sometime before 16,000 years ago and the American Indian Hopewell culture who, 2,000 years ago, created the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks UNESCO World Heritage Site. He has published numerous scholarly papers on these topics as well as articles intended for a general audience on a variety of subjects relating to North American archaeology. He is the principal author of Ohio Archaeology: an illustrated chronicle of Ohio’s ancient American Indian cultures, published in 2005 by Orange Frazer Press and now out of print. This book received the Society for American Archaeology’s Public Audience Book Award in 2007.
This 2024 VIRTUAL HISTORY SERIES is sponsored by Avon Historical Society, Avon Free Public Library and Avon Senior Center, in partnership with the Avon Land Trust, Farmington River Watershed Association, and the Institute of American Indian Studies in Washington, CT.
Please register and a Zoom link will be sent out before the event.