The First Americans

Early People

New Inuits in Town WebQuest

The Last Ice Age

The last Ice Age began about 70,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000 B.C.
Beringia was a land bridge that connected Asia to North America.
This land bridge led to migration of people from Asia to North America.

The Migrations

Early people stayed in Alaska until around 10,000 B.C. (glaciers were melting).
The first Americans were hunters and gatherers and began following their food (animals) into what we know as Canada.
The ice-free corridor was in Canada and was about 100 miles wide.
By 8,000 B.C. people lived throughout the Americas.
The land bridge became covered by water around 8,000 B.C.
Some people may have arrived in the Americas by boat, or people could have just been here, we are searching for the answers today.

The Way of Life

In the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) people mostly got food by hunting and gathering (nomads).
In the Neolithic (New Stone Age) people got food by producing it (farming or agriculture).
The first farming was in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico (three major crops were corn or maize, squash, and beans).

The Work of Archaeologists

We know about early people as archaeologists study excavated artifacts and bones.
To determine time (how old something is) archaeologists use tree growth rings and carbon-14 (a radioactive element in objects) dating.

Indian Cultures

Cultures in North America

Native American Shelters

Arctic:

Eskimos prefer to be called Inuit.
Inuit people (Eskimos) made use of their environment as they caught fish and hunted animals, wolves, polar bears, and reindeer for food; used animal skins and bones in clothing, boats, weapons, utensils, and in building houses; and burned seal oil to produce heat and light.

Subarctic:

People who lived in the subarctic were the Tanaina, Cree, Ottawa, and Ojibwa, or Chippewa.
Hunters and gatherers; lived in wigwams (rounded houses made of wood poles and covered with moss, bark, or animal skins); and used birch-bark canoes to travel in summer and wood snowshoes to move about and toboggans to carry goods in winter.

Northwest Coast:

Included the Tlingit, Chinook, Nootka, Kwakiutl, and Haida.
They fished and hunted sea animals and built large seagoing canoes which held up to 40 people; lived in villages of 300 people, with 10 - 12 cedar wood houses (rectangular and made with large planks set in frames of heavy posts); built totem poles which showed the history and rank of families; divided into four classes of people (slaves, average people, nobles, and chiefs); and the chiefs and nobles held celebrations in the winter called potlatches where they gave away gifts to the guests.

Great Basin:

Included the Shoshoni, Ute, and Paiute.
Had very few resources, spent most of their time hunting and gathering (made flour from pine nuts); wove reed baskets to store and cook food.
Lived in wikiups (huts with an oval base and a frame covered with reed mats or brush).

Plateau:

Included the Nez Perce, Yakima, Paleuse, and Walla Walla.
Lived in mat covered houses and in winter in pit houses (floor was a pit in the ground, walls were made of posts set in the floor of the pit, and the roof was shaped like a cone and formed from poles laid on rafters and covered with earth). Pit houses were about 30 feet in diameter and held several families.
Chose the chief based on intelligence, and some groups chose a woman to be chief.

California:

Include the Chumash, Yokut, Pomo, and Yukis.
The major craft of the California people was basket making.
Lived in permanent pit houses or wikiups on hunting trips.

Southwest:

Include the Hohokam and their descendants, the Pima and Papago; the Anasazi and their Pueblo descendants, the Hopi and Zuni; and the Apache and Navajo.
Lived in pueblo or adobe houses.
Were farmers that built canals to irrigate crops; wove cotton cloth; made pottery and baskets. The women owned most of the property, and worked in the fields with the men. Society was divided into clans based on maternal lineage.

Plains:

Included the village people in the east: the Wichita, Pawnee, Mandan, Osage, and Omaha; were farmers and hunters.
Included the nomads in the west: Blackfoot, Crow, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Sioux; were hunters (antelope, deer, and buffalo); lived in tipis (cone-shaped houses covered with buffalo hide).
Because many languages were spoken by Plains people they developed a set of hand signals to communicate.
They believed in the Sun Dance (a dance to keep away enemies and famine).

Eastern Woodlands:

Included the Mound Builders in Ohio and Mississippi river valleys; in the Great Lakes region there were the Fox, Miami, Shawnee, Sac, Huron, and Winnebago; in the northeast were the Iroquois; and along the Atlantic Coast were the Pequot, Mohegan, Narraganset, Delaware, and Powhatan.
They fished and hunted; were skilled in crafts (carved bowls and tools from wood, made pottery, and some living near the Great Lakes made art and weapons from copper); lived in villages in long houses (large, rectangular buildings made from wood poles and bark); and religion was important to them.
Iroquois women owned the property and chose the sachems (chiefs).
The Iroquois were the most powerful Indian group in the Eastern Woodlands. They were divided into five nations: the Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, and Mohawk.

Southeast:

Include the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Natchez, and Seminole.
Were hunters, fishers, gatherers, and farmers.
Houses and land were owned by women; used pit houses in the winter.

Cultures in Middle and South America

Maya:

Civilization began around 1000 B.C. and reached its peak between 300 and 900 A.D.
Existed in the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico to Belize and Guatemala.
Were farmers; most villages were near cities; cities were trade centers; had stone pyramids with temples on top; religious leaders ruled the people (theocracy); had their own system of hieroglyphics; developed a calendar with 365 days; and developed the idea of zero.

Aztecs:

About 1200 A.D. the Aztecs moved into central Mexico.
By 1400 A.D. their empire had over 5 million people.
Their capital city, Tenochtitlan, had pyramids, temples, palaces, gardens, zoos, schools, and markets.
Had human sacrifices.
By the 1500s the sacrifices of so many war captives and the burden of heavy taxes had made the conquered people ready to revolt against the Aztecs; the empire was ripe for conquest.

Incas:

Civilization rose in the early 1400s in South America (Peru).
Were farmers, and all land was owned by the government.
Used quipus to keep track of people; had a system of roads; and the city of Cuzco had a central square with temples and palaces (the buildings were put together without cement, and were covered with sheets of gold).
In the early 1500s the Inca ruler died and a fight broke out between two groups for the throne; this led to unrest in the empire and left it weak against foreign invaders.

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