Meadowcroft to Host Fifth Annual American Indian Heritage Weekend

Meadowcroft to Host Fifth Annual American Indian Heritage
Weekend

This weekend, visitors to Meadowcroft Rockshelter and
Historic Village, part of the Senator John Heinz History Center museum system,
will get a first-hand look at the everyday lives of 16th and 18th century
American Indians as part of the fifth annual American Indian Heritage Weekend on Sept. 28-29.

The popular weekend features a variety of re-enactors who
will demonstrate traditional American Indian skills and bring Meadowcroft’s
16th century Indian Village to life.

Special presentations in the new 1770s Frontier Indian cabin
will spotlight the similarities and differences between the lives of American
Indians and European settlers in the Upper Ohio Valley.

Re-enactors will also explain the prehistoric and colonial
era skills used by the American Indians, including hunting, fur trading,
cooking, weaving, decorative porcupine quill work, hide tanning, tool-making,
and a creek-side demonstration of native fishing techniques.

Visitors can explore the interior of a wigwam, inspect
carefully recreated prehistoric artifacts, learn about American Indian
agriculture, and try their hand at using an atlatl, a prehistoric spear
thrower. 

Throughout the outdoor hands-on weekend, the Meadowcroft
visitor’s center will also host a special exhibit with works by local artist
Andrew Knez Jr., who is known for his frontier paintings which illustrate the
lives of American Indians and backwoodsmen from the Ohio River Valley region.

Included in admission are tours of the Meadowcroft
Rockshelter, a National Historic Landmark and the oldest site of human
habitation in North America that features a massive, 16,000-year-old rock
overhang used by the region’s earliest inhabitants for shelter. Visitors can
also step back in time at Meadowcroft’s Historic Village, which carefully
recreates all of the charming qualities of an Upper Ohio Valley Village from
the mid-19th century.

The American Indian Heritage Weekend event is included with
regular admission: $12 for adults, $11 for senior citizens, and $6 for children
ages 6-17. Children under 6 and History Center members get in free.

For more information on Meadowcroft Rockshelter and
Historic Village, please visit www.heinzhistorycenter.org and click on the
Meadowcroft tab, or call 724-587-3412.