The Migration To America

1. The Migration To America The Bering Strait

2. How do we know where the first people to migrate to America came from? DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) – basic building material for all life on Earth Radiocarbon Dating – radioactivity in carbon 14 measured (half-life – 5,730 years) skulls bones teeth

3. From DNA, scientists have concluded that the earliest Americans probably came from Asia.

4. 100,000 years ago – Ice Age – glaciers and large icebergs - ocean levels dropped

6. Much of the Earth’s water was held in glaciers such as these.

7. Glacier National Park Montana

8. Glacier Bay National Park - Alaska

9. Beringia – area of dry land that connected Asia with North America Named after Vitus Bering, 18th century explorer of the region

10. Nomads chased animals such as the wooly mammoth across the land bridge.

11. Satellite image of the Bering Strait – created when rising seawater submerged the land bridge about 10,000 years ago

13. Little Diomede Island (U.S.) Big Diomede Island (Russia)

14. Would a Bering Strait Bridge be possible?

15. Civilizations of Mesoamerica • meso – Greek for middle • southern Mexico & Central America • agricultural revolution (9 to 10 thousand years ago) • plant and raise crops

16. Most important crop was maize, known today as corn How was it used?

17. Agriculture – people abandoned nomadic way of life • permanent villages • new technology (tools) • pottery • government

18. Civilizations emerge – organized society; trade, government, arts, science, and written language Mayan ruins in Belize

19. I. The Olmec • first to build a civilization in America (1500-1200 B.C.) • near present day Veracruz, Mexico

20. Sculpted monuments including 8-foot high heads weighing up to 20 tons Possibly modeled after notable citizens including leaders

21. 30 miles NE of Mexico City • city built near volcano, obsidian (tools and weapons) • 300 B.C. to 650 • inhabitants unknown II. Teotihuacán Avenue of the Dead and Pyramid of the Sun

22. Pyramid of the Moon - Teotihuacán

23. Sacrificial victims – Teotihuacán museum

24. III. The Maya Emerged in the Yucatan Peninsula in 200

25. Engineering and mathematics • Calendars linked to the position of the stars December 21, 2012 - according to the ancient Maya, this date will mark the end of one world as we know it and the beginning of another…

26. “In regards to the ever-increasing attention on the December 21, 2012 date, the living Maya of Guatemala urgently want it to be known that their ancient prophecies have been distorted and misinterpreted as doomsday predictions. They do not advocate all the fear and hysteria that is being generated by the sensationalized 2012 rumors, and they want people to be aware that most of the 2012 misinformation being put out is not sourced from the Maya or their calendars whatsoever, even though it may appear to be associated with them.”

27. Mayan city of Tikal… Present-day Guatemala

28. Chichen Itza in present-day Mexico How were these built that long ago?

29. IV. The Toltec • central Mexico • among first Native Americans • to use gold and copper for • jewelry Tula, the Toltec city, is best known today for its fearsome 15-foot-high stone warrior figures.

30. Tula fell around 1200 to invaders known as the Chichimec.

31. one group of Chichimec, the Mexica, established Tenochtitlan in 1325 • Mexica took the name Aztec, name of original homeland Aztlan, SW • sacrificed people they conquered V. The Aztecs

32. Aztec ruins in Mexico City

33. North American Cultures

34. year 300, Arizona • irrigation canals • Hohokam petroglyphs I. The Hohokam

35. Remains of a prehistoric Hohokam irrigation canal at "Park of the Canals” in Mesa, Arizona

36. Hohokam cliff dwelling

37. Casa Grande (“Great House”) Ruins National Monument – overlook from which the Hohokam could observe the status of their canals

38. II. The Anasazi • between 700 and 900, Four Corners • “ancient ones”

39. Chaco Canyon, NW New Mexico • buildings of adobe called kivas • Spanish called these pueblos, Spanish • word for villages

40. Pueblo Bonito – 3 acres, 600 rooms housing 1,000 people

41. cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde

42. Mesa Verde

43. III. The Adena • eastern woodlands, woodworking tools, canoes • 1000 B.C., started burying dead under earthen mounds • Great Serpent Mound in southern Ohio

44. Grave Creek Mound Archaeology Complex

45. IV. The Hopewell • Ohio Valley • geometric earthworks • ceremonial centers, observatories, burial places

46. V. Mississippian • built the city of Cahokia (Illinois) • peak was 1050 to 1250 • 16,000 people (40,000 in the region…larger than London!) • droughts and overpopulation…downfall?

47. Cahokia

48. Cahokia Mound