History seen through a Native Plant, Animal, & Peoples’ Lens
time-immemorial
From Time Immemorial to a Melting Pot
time-immemorial-tribal-sovereignty
State of Oregon’s history begins with stories of the distant past applying Washington’s Time Immemorial pathways. We end with a study of
the future because there will be a future: 1) we will solve the challenge of humans potentially destroying their nest and 2) it will be the continued melding of cultures that makes America unique. All history lessons incorporate Indigenous Peoples, Native Plants, Native Animals, and environmental challenges. These lessons apply Washington State’s mandated inclusion of Indigenous lore with state history, making this offering different and distinct for 11 western states and provinces’ (with apologies to Arizona and Nevada, that hold no part of the Rocky Mountain Floristic Region). We also do not apologize for beginning with 2 topics: Homo Sapiens in the Americas and History, the Search to Live Fully Realized Lives. Ethnobotanicals are what make our histories unique, there would be no human history of life without the food, shelter, and medicines provided by native flora and fauna. We teach visually with remediation (for wrong answers) allowing students of all ages to learn from their mistakes. Again, this is the greatest gift of history to future generations, the learning from past mistakes.
How many humans, Homo Sapiens, lived in South or North America 30,000 years ago?
a million
one hundred thousand
Wyoming’s history begins with stories of the distant past applying Time Immemorial and ethnobotany pathways. We end with a study of the Future because there will be a future: 1) we will solve the challenge of homo sapiens potential self-Extinction and 2) trace how the melding of cultures, that was once thought to be America and Canada’s goal, has been replaced in today’s celebration of cultural diversity achieved, women’s rights guaranteed, and the need for biodiversity preserved. (E.O. Wilson above). Our America’s Far West history begins with 2 topics: Homo Sapiens in the Americas and the Search to Live Fully Realized Lives, start to end.
In 2024 the scientific world was stunned by reports of materials brought back from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu; it is a mud ball created before our Sun’s fire burned 4,600,000,000 years ago. It contains water-formed amino acids, phosphates, uracil and thymine, the building blocks of life. Life appears to be ubiquitous over billions of years. But we humans, known as Homo Sapiens, are but a few 10s of 1,000s of years in existence, perhaps 300,000, perhaps 30,000. We first entered the Americas with immigrating Indigenous Peoples 15,000 years ago … all of us with African Eve as a shared grandmother. We are all brothers and sisters (West Africa pygmies, Artic Eskimos and Sami, South African Hottentots, Incas, Norse Vikings, etc.). We are all Eve’s descendants (mitochondrial DNA attesting), now numbering 8,200,000,000 (growing at 100 million/year). Extinctions of Pacific Rim Native Animals, Plants (900 species in Cascadia, 4,000 in Rocky Mountains) or people are perhaps inevitable after 100,000,000s of years, but do not needlessly have to occur tomorrow, as are occurring with today’s humans’ indifferent and careless treatment of the Earth. Ethnobotanicals are what make all our histories unique, there would be no human history of life without the food, shelter, and medicines provided by native flora … and fauna. The West’s native plant and animal species and native cultures are disappearing. Man-made Extinction events need not occur!
The West could, indeed, offer the Beacons of Light for human behaviors that must evolve. The list of the first U.S. and Canadian entities allowing women the right to vote reads: Wyoming (1869), Colorado (1893), Idaho (1896), Washington (1910), California (1911), Oregon (1912), Arizona (1912 … not part of Rocky Mountains), Montana (1914), Alberta (1916), British Columbia (1917) … long before any in the East. Our histories tell us how our ancestors achieved this. The West forced the hands of our two countries … to do the right thing. We could do it again.