In this dissertation, I investigate the appearance of maize farming and subsequent social changes in the Central Great Plains by incorporating Indigenous perspectives in the archaeological record of the past one thousand years and evaluating the radiocarbon dataset used to create archaeological and cultural chronology. I explore the history and utility of Indigenous archaeologies as a theoretical framework for archaeological practice and why this approach is necessary for interpreting the results of my analyses. Oral traditions belonging to the Arikara and Pawnee Nation’s regarding social change, ethnogenesis, and population movement are presented and evaluated for interpreting the appearance of maize farming and permanent settlement patterns between the 11^th and 17^th centuries C.E. I present a new chronometric hygiene protocol for evaluating radiocarbon data and construct robust OxCal produced Bayesian statistical models of Central Plains archaeological taxa to investigate the temporal relationships between the Late Plains Woodland, Early Plains Village Period, and Late Plains Village Period. These analyses indicate that maize horticultural practices appeared on the Central Plains in central Nebraska during the 12^th century C.E., rather than in the 10^th century C.E. in Northeastern Kansas. Pawnee and Arikara oral traditions are shown to corroborate the patterns of social change and changing subsistence practices evidenced by archaeological investigation.