ROGERS – Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area will host a free program on thousands of years of bluff shelter activity in Arkansas … 2:00 pm August 11, 2024, in the park’s visitor center. Mark your calendar.
Alalynna Littlefeather, an indigenous woman, was born on and spent most of her adolescence, on a Navajo reservation. She is a storyteller and educator of the “First Nations”, the small ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area and their communities.
Littlefeather will discuss a variety of different tribes that moved through NWA from as early as the Archaic period. In the very early stages of indigenous history there were probably hundreds of “tribes”, many as small as 5 people. Later, these smaller tribes began to merge and become the tribes that we recognize today as Cherokee, Caddo, Osage, etc.
Prehistorically, indigenous peoples traveled to where the food was and the bluff shelters were often used as a "pit stop" to store supplies, have burials, and conduct rituals. As a result, the shelters are rich in artifacts representing a very wide range of prehistoric and historic Native American people.