The First Americans

1. The First Americans What forces shaped the Native American experience in Pre-Columbian North America?

2. What do we mean by: • Geography • Natural Resources • Culture

3. Geography • What are our 5 themes of geography? (MR. HeLP) • Movement • Region • Human-Environment Interaction • Location • Place

4. How did geography affect ancient migrations? • Geographic boundaries limited migration patterns due to lacking technologies • Mountains • Oceans • Rivers • Lakes • Deserts • Forests

5. Where did ancient native peoples settle? • With no previous knowledge of the geographic characteristics of North America, migrations of Native Americans took many routes. • Three great migrations occurred as peoples crossed a land bridge in the Bering Straight (Beringia) from the Siberian Peninsula to Alaska. • The last of these great migrations took place over 12,000 years ago and began much earlier.

6. Beringia

7. Prehistoric Migration

8. How does geography promote differences? • Geographic Isolation • Limits genetic diversity • Limits cultural exchange • Climate Adaption • Differences in clothing and building materials • Biological evolution • Natural Resources • Differences in language • Convenience economies

9. American Adaption • Native Americans proved highly adaptive to their new environment. • Hunting and gathering created an economic system that was very complex and far reaching. • In the Pacific Northwest and Californian coast, they built permanent settlements.

10. Native American Adaptions • On the Great Plains, after hunting Paleolithic mammals to extension they adopted new weapons, atlatl(a spear throwing device), that would eventually become the bow and arrow.

11. Native American Adaptions • In the eastern woodlands, Algonquians engaged in controlled burning, creating park like forests. • Simple kin-based groupings evolved into complex tribal structures, cemented by rituals, founding myths, and distinctive crafts.

12. Native American Adaptions • By 6000 B.C.E., Native Americans in Mexico and Peru were raising crops breeding maize into a nutritious plant with a higher yield per acre than wheat. • Mixing of crops increased production and laid the foundation for prosperous urban societies.

13. The Hopewell Culture • By 100 C.E., the peoples of present-day Ohio had domesticated plants, organized themselves into large villages, and created trading networks that stretched from Louisiana to Wisconsin. • This all collapsed around 400 C.E. for unknown reasons.

14. The Peoples of the Southwest • By 600 C.E., the Hohokam in the high country of present-day Arizona and New Mexico used irrigation to grow crops. • By 1000 C.E., they were living in elaborate, multistory, multiroom stone or mud brick structure called pueblos.

15. Mississippian Civilization • The Mississippi River Valley was home to the largest northern Indian culture with a capital city, Cahokia, that had a population of nearly 20,000. • They built large burial mounds that covered much of the southeastern region but by 1350 C.E. the culture was in rapid decline.

16. Eastern Woodland Peoples • Lived in self-governing clans, or family groups, that traced their lineage to a real or legendary common ancestor. • Clan leaders and village elders performed many “government” duties like settling disputes and creating war policies. • Many developed matrilineal systems of kinship due to the importance of farming.

17. Iroquois Confederacy

18. Who? • The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee (“People of the Longhouse”) are a league of six nations and tribes of indigenous people of North America.

19. Who? • The Iroquois include the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations

20. What? • The Iroquois Confederacy refers to a government and political system.

21. Why? • The Iroquois Confederacy was formed to establish peace between the warring nations.

22. So What? • Write two to three sentences on a half-sheet of paper about how this confederacy benefited the Iroquois Nations and turn it in on your way out.