You know, I don't usually think about corn too much.

But maybe I should.

If you think about it, we use corn in a lot of different recipes, and there are so many ways we can enjoy it.

But corn hasn't always been available around the world like it is today.

In fact, prior to the age of exploration, corn was essentially unknown to people outside of the Americas.

For thousands of years, Indigenous people, including those in present-day Georgia, learned how to grow and prepare corn.

And because of its versatility, it became a major part of their rich culture.

So to better understand the significance of this crop, we need to take a look back at what life was like for the first people who called Georgia home.

During the Ice Age, so much ocean water was frozen into glaciers that sea levels dropped, exposing a land bridge between Asia and the New World.

Archeologists who study ancient people believe it was across this land bridge that the first human beings came to America, lured by the promise of more food.

Because people weren't the only thing crossing the land bridge, animals crossed too, things like mastodon and mammoth and bison, giant creatures that lived in the same time that these people did.

And so they just followed their source of meat.

They hunted big game that could provide enough meat to feed a family for a month.

When food was gone in one area, they moved on.

Warm weather pulled some to the southeast and to Georgia, where they found new food sources.

The native people began to hunt small animals to fish.

To gather nuts and berries.

And in time, they made an amazing discovery.

They didn't have to chase their food.

They could grow it.

They learned how to grow squash, beans, and corn.

But the most valuable of these, they called maize.

We call corn.

Corn is a really valuable food product.

And mainly because it produces, for the amount of labor you put into it, it produces lots and lots of calories.

In other words, for a tremendous amount of labor involved in planting and tending the fields, you get a lot of food.

And that food is easily storable.

The native people became master farmers, and it changed their lives.

Before they moved from place to place, now they could settle down.

Before they traveled in small groups.

Now, they lived in large villages.

Before they worried about their next meal.

Now the had plenty to eat.

No wonder the Indians considered corn a gift from God.

Even today, their biggest festival celebrates the first harvest of the summer.

The Green Corn Ceremony is days and nights filled with fasting and feasting, song and dance.

Like with our green corn, the dances that we would do, they would be symbolic and giving thanks for that new corn that is coming.

That's why we called it green corn is because it was new corn and it being new.

And we would this dance in order so that next year, the following year, that our crops would do good.

Diamond Brown is Cherokee.

He likes to come to the top of Georgia's Stone Mountain where his ancestors would have come long ago to pray to the creator.

He and his daughters perform native dances, the jingle dance, the fancy shawl dance, the warrior's dance.

But these are not the green corn dances.

Those dances are a form of prayer considered to be so sacred that few outsiders have ever seen them.

Diamond Brown teaches his girls the ancient ways, but he feels those customs must stay among his people.

We have a hard time in keeping our culture alive, and keeping our traditions alive.

And what happens is when we share these things, the reason why that the outsiders, I would say, are not invited is because we need to hang on to our own cultures.

We need to keep that alive among our own people.

Corn was like gold to the early Indians.

It allowed them to live together in big permanent villages.

And when you stay in one place for generations, everything changes.

People became very sophisticated.

They developed elaborate religious ceremonies, beautiful artwork.

And corn gave village leaders power and status like never before, because someone had to settle disputes.

Someone had to divide the community corn.

And someone had to organize all the labor.

That someone was the chief.

Can you imagine on some of the days here at Etowah where there were big ceremonies being held, a group of very powerful chiefs walking up these steps all dressed in feathers and painted?

It must have been something to see, don't you think?

Nearly a thousand years ago, the Etowah Indian Mounds near Cartersville were just such a great chiefdom.

Archeologists believe these spectacular mounds started out as small platforms built by hand for the chief's family to live on.

When the chief died, it was customary to tear down his house, add another layer of dirt, and build a new house for the new chief right on top.

The Indian mound at Etowah tells an archeologist that somebody was politically powerful enough to organize and command a whole bunch of people to get together, put baskets on their backs, fill them with dirt, walk them up to the top of the mound, and dump it and create this giant platform, and then the chief would then live on top of that and lord it over everybody else.

So, a mound to an archeologist equals political power.

Just think think about what we would have to eat today if it were not for the Indians.

There would be no cornbread for starters.

In fact, on that vegetable plate, no corn, no beans, and no squash.

So the next time you sit down to a home-cooked southern meal, give thanks for the nomads who crossed that land bridge more than 10,000 years ago.

Wow, whether we realize it or not, Indigenous traditions and cultures still play a big part of our everyday lives.

What are some other ways Indigenous culture has influenced our own?

As you explore this question, you'll start to see how Georgia's first people are still a part of Georgia's story today.

And that is a pretty incredible legacy to leave behind.