Distant Past’s Artifacts, Relics, & Start of Human Caused Extinctions in the West
        Stories and Histories of Our Place … and all those that have been lost

What happens to a population like the Arawak of the Carribean or the varied Indigenous Peoples of the Cascadia and Rocky Mountain Regions post plagues, wars and other extinction events … numbering in the millions before 1492 with 40,000 alive in 1900? One certainty, for the Native Indigenous of the Cascadia and Rocky Mountain cultures with 80 different languages, all with no written histories, their populace loss must have been devastating. When old people die, the young lose their mentors.  Their ancestors were earth friendly; they cared for this planet.  They were not careless, but they may have been caught unaware of huge tsunamis of fire, water, and disease (from the ocean and/or extinction minded invaders).  15,000 years ago, when sea levels were 400 feet lower than they are today, they lived closer to those water edges, area now all submerged.  Like annual and biannual plants, stories can become extinct without their being reseeded/retold.  Tsunamis, forest fires, and human created holocausts, all bury history.

The State Bird of Montana is the:

California Quail
Western Meadowlark
Bald Eagle

Reproducible Student Worksheet
Color or paint this State Bird

State of Montana History
Distant Past’s Artifacts, Relics

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