North America

and its first inhabitants

8/14/17

Around 7-12 million people populated North America, 60-70 million in America before the
arrival of Columbus

Native American societies were diverse and sophisticated, based on geography.

- Contributions to medicine, art, architecture, ecology.
- Plants for food, dyes, medicine, textiles
- Domesticated animals
- Extensive patterns of trade
- Massive cities, huge monumental architecture
- Reshaped environment to meet their own needs
Native Americans crossed over the Bering Strait
- Land bridge between Siberia and Alaska
- Native Americans and Mongolians with similar physical and linguistic characteristics
Native Americans took 3 routes across America
- East: across Canada’s northern coast
- South: along Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountains
- Southeast: Ohio Valley, Mississippi Valley
They were hunters
- Bison, caribou, oxen, mammoths
- Mammoths and others went extinct, no one knows why?
o Over killings? Climate change?
- Many turned to hunting smaller animals, fishing, even gathering different foods
o This led to the Archaic Period
Archaic Period
- population growth, foraging, new weapons
o hooks for fishing, awls, axes, boats, cloth, darts, millstones, woven baskets, etc.
Formative Period (a little after archaic period)
- Domestication of wild seeds
o maize (corn), fruit trees
 most likely from travel and trade
- permanent settlements
Prehistoric American Cultures
- established big cities, and governments
- huge architectural achievements: pyramids, temples, mounds, statues, canals, etc.
Inuit and Aleut
- around north west coast Alaska, adapted to cold conditions
- relied on hunting and fishing (plants didn’t grow in cold temperature)
- animal’s skins to keep cold
- organized in small independent bands
Haidas, Kwakiutls, Tlingits
- pacific northwest
- water and dense forests
- didn’t work too hard for food, plenty of fish
- focused on specialized cultures – ceremonies, art, etc.
Ancestors of Pueblo and Navajo
- Southwest Desert
- Massive, complex irrigation systems
- crops: corn, squash, beans  three sisters
- climate change increased rainfall and therefor increased migration
- but, somewhere between 1,000 c.e. they abandoned their dwellings and moved east.
o Irrigation dried up, they faced pressure from all around
Midwest and Southeast
- Trade and agriculture
- Mound builders, Mexican influence – Poverty Point (migration from Mexico)