Annette Kolodny - Fictions of American Prehistory: Indians, Archeology, and National Origin Myths - American Literature 75:4 American Literature 75.4 (2003) 693-721 Fictions of American Prehistory: Indians, Archeology, and National Origin Myths Annette Kolodny In the midst of a national debate about the meaning and impact of Columbus's first landfall in the Americas, Vine Deloria Jr. attempted to alter the context of discussion by insisting that "we need to know the truth about North American prehistory." By using the term prehistory, Deloria followed common practice among archeologists and anthropologists in referring to events in the Americas that predate Columbus and (European) written histories, also known as the precontact period. His 1992 address to the Society for American Archeology argued "that unless and until we [Indians] are in some way connected with world history as early peoples, . . . we will never be accorded full humanity. We cannot be primitive peoples who were suddenly discovered half a millennium ago." A member of the Standing Rock Sioux nation, a political scientist, and a longtime analyst of Indian-white relations, Deloria wanted the assembled archeologists to understand how the various quincentenary observances (including their own) of Columbus's so-called "discovery" inevitably ended up "regard[ing Indians] as freaks outside historical time." For Deloria, that "interpretation" is "all wrong." Interpretations of prehistory have...