Welcome to the Penn Museum blog. First launched in January 2009, the Museum blog now has over 800 posts covering a range of topics in the categories of Museum, Collection, Exhibitions, Research, and By Location. Here you’ll hear directly from our staff and Penn students about their work, research, experiences, and discoveries. To explore the Museum's other digital content, visit The Digital Penn Museum.
November 29, 1729: The Natchez Revolt
By: Megan Kassabaum
As a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, and now Weingarten Assistant Curator in the American Section of the Penn Museum, I have spent over a decade working on prehistoric Native American sites in the area surrounding Natchez, Mississippi. Many of you may have read about our recent work there in these previous […]
Teaching with Objects in ANTH 128: “Peopling Prehistory: Archaeology of Native North America”
By: Megan Kassabaum
This course explored over 10,000 years of the North American archaeological record, investigating the unwritten histories and material evidence of Indigenous peoples prior to European contact. Throughout the class, archaeological studies of prehistory were interwoven with contemporary Native interpretations—much as they are in the Penn Museum’s Native American Voices exhibit. The students visited this exhibit […]
Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley : Great Wonders Lecture Series
By: Megan Kassabaum
Stretching over 2,500 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River Valley is among the richest archaeological regions on the North American continent. Home to thousands of earthen mounds, it contains both the oldest and the most elaborate monumental architecture in North America. The earliest of these monuments was constructed at least […]