"Photojournalist Andrew Lichtenstein is documenting sites important to America's past, with the idea that what he finds there reflects on what's important to people in the present.

Bear Butte, on the northern edge of the Black Hills in South Dakota, is where the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes received their creation myth. It is still a religious site of great importance, despite being only a few miles from the biker bars and annual motorcycle rallies of Sturgis. For thousands of years, American Indian tribes, including the Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Kiowa, Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan, have traveled to Bear Butte to perform annual prayer ceremonies. While the mountain itself is a protected state park, there are plans for oil drilling in the surrounding area."

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PhotoBlog: History through the lens of today: Native Americans (MSNBC 1/17)