Early Americans

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Early Americans

Cultures in America

• When did the first Americans arrive?

• Possibly 22,000 years ago

• Last Ice Age had frozen vast quantities of water, creating land bridge between Russia and Alaska - the Bering Strait

• Ancient hunters trekked across the frozen land into North America

Hunting and Gathering

• Earliest Americans lived as big-game hunters

• Lifestyle changed when temperatures warmed, glaciers melted, and sea levels rose once again

• Land bridge disappeared under the Bering Sea

• Climate grew warmer and larger animals no longer thrived

• People gradually switched to hunting smaller game and fish and gathering nuts and berries

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Agriculture

• Many ancient groups settled in North America, others continued into what is now Mexico and South America.

• Between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, an agricultural revolution took place in what is now central Mexico.

• Planting of crops eventually led to the spreading of agricultural techniques

• Agriculture made it possible for people to settle in one place

• Large communities developed

Early American Agriculture

Complex farming methods by early societies in South

America

Terrace farming

Cultures in North America

• Several North American groups, Hohokam and the Anasazi, introduced crops into deserts of Southwest U.S.

• Other Native American societies (Adena, Mississipian, Hopewell) developed

• These people became the first cultures in North America

• Between 300 BC and AD 1400, each group had established its own culture

• Ancestors of the many Native American groups that inhabited North America around 1400’s-1500’s

Native American Societies of the 1400s

• Many different cultures emerged in North America

• Varied regions of the North American continent provided for many different ways of life

• Native groups that populated the continent’s coasts, deserts, and forests

Maya, Aztec and Inca

• First empire of the Americas emerged as early as 1200 BC in what is now southern Mexico, the Olmec

• After Olmec collapse around 400 BC, Maya built a dynamic culture in Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula between AD 250 and 900

• Later the Aztec settled the valley in Mexico during the 1200s

• Inca people dominated South America and created a complex culture

Course Goals

• Understand people and societies:

• Identify, analyze and explain early American cultures and people

• Understand why people change:

• Examine and describe how cultures interact and result in a change of culture

The Big Picture

Get familiar with 3 of 4 major early American cultures

1. Maya

2. Aztec

3. Inca

4. AnasaziTimeline

Cultural Characteristics

Location and Map

Cultures in Early America

• Culture: Knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors shared by and passed on by members of a specific group

• All products of human thought

• How people should behave in the group

• Cultural Characteristics:

• food and shelter and religion

• relationships and language

• education and security/protection

• political and social organization

• creative expression/art

• A groups that shares a geographic region, sense of identity and culture is called a society