Bowling Green, Ky. - As part of Native American Heritage Month in Kentucky, Western Kentucky University will present a lecture next week on “Archaeology and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians” by Russell G. Townsend.

Townsend, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, will speak at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Garrett Conference Center Ballroom. The lecture is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Provost’s Initiative for Excellence, the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology, and the Office of Diversity Programs.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) is one of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. Today the EBCI has more 10,000 enrolled members and land holdings covering 100 square miles in western North Carolina. In the past, however, traditional Cherokee lands spanned 140,000 square miles in present-day Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.  In addition, all parts of Kentucky except the westernmost nine counties were traditional Cherokee lands.

One component of the EBCI tribal government is the Tribal Historic Preservation Office, the staff of which is responsible for protecting and preserving important Cherokee heritage sites throughout the tribe’s current and traditional lands. 

In his presentation, Townsend will discuss the roles of the preservation office, Cherokee perspectives on archaeology, and two recent archaeological projects conducted by the EBCI. Archaeological research is ongoing at Kituwah, the Mother Town and most sacred site of the Cherokee people. The Ravensford Project, the largest archaeological project in North Carolina history, was carried out on the Qualla Boundary by professional archaeologists who followed Cherokee research design and utilized more than $6.5 million in Tribal monies to document 9,000 years of occupation.

Townsend, an archaeologist and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, has served as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the EBCI since 2001. He previously served as director of the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tenn. Townsend earned a baccalaureate degree in anthropology at the University of Oklahoma at Norman and a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Oklahoma at Tulsa; his thesis is “A Study of Cherokee Log Houses in Eastern Oklahoma.”

Townsend is finishing a doctorate degree in anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; his dissertation is “The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.”

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For information, contact Darlene Applegate at (270) 745-5094.

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