Kettle Moraine program on Native American history rescheduled

FOND DU LAC - Due to inclement January weather, the Evening with Nature Series program, the “First 12,000 years of Native American History,” has been rescheduled to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15, at the Ice Age Visitor Center of the Kettle Moraine State Forest – Northern Unit, located off State 67 a half mile west of Dundee.

This program is free, but donations are always gratefully accepted.

RELATED: Kettle Moraine presents 'Now that the ash are gone' program on trees

RELATED: Candlelight Ski/Hike, Winter Star Gazing to be held at Kettle Moraine

RELATED: Whaley, Bender bring Big History back to Fond du Lac Public Library starting Jan. 31

Attendees will take a journey back through time to learn about the first 12,000 years of Native American history in what is now Wisconsin and the upper Great Lakes area. They will start at the end of the last Ice Age to the very beginning of European contact.

Program topics include prehistoric climates/climate changes, early human migrations, shifting artifact styles, petroform and mounds. Participants will find out about other traits that defined cultures and were influenced by landscape changes before the coming of the Europeans.

The evening’s presenter, Herman Bender, is an independent researcher, writer, and editor with a background in geology and an amateur astronomer with decades of experience. He is nationally and internationally published in many fields of study.

As a specialist in Plains and Woodland Indian astronomy traditions and related cosmologies, Bender has collaborated with several Native American tribes including the Northern Cheyenne, Lakota, Ojibway, Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk. Much of this work relates to Native American land claims, repatriation issues and establishing cultural identities.

For further information, contact the staff at the Ice Age Visitor Center. The center’s phone number is 920-533-8322 and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.