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Pre-Columbian America. Migration to the Americas. Estimates: as long as 35,000 years ago Crossed the Bering Sea over a land bridge As people fanned through the W. Hemisphere, separate and distinct cultures emerged. Agriculture & Resources. Agriculture is the key to the birth of civilization
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Migration to the Americas • Estimates: as long as 35,000 years ago • Crossed the Bering Sea over a land bridge • As people fanned through the W. Hemisphere, separate and distinct cultures emerged
Agriculture & Resources • Agriculture is the key to the birth of civilization • Control over the food supply • Increased population growth • Allow for groups to splinter off and form new communities • Pursuits of other interests • Maize • Societies developed based on the resources available to them
Mayan Structures Ball Court – Chichen Itza Observatory
Hohokam & Anasazi (Southwestern Cultures) • Spanish called them Pueblos • Terraced buildings • Complex irrigation system
Northwest/Pacific Coast Cultures • Homes were plank houses made of red cedar • Used totem poles to guard villages • Lived off of fish and hunting. Not as agriculturally based
Mississippian Cultures • Built great earthen structures • Used rivers to trade with other cultures • Cahokia
Eastern Cultures & the Iroquois • Hunted, fished & planted • Fertilzer • Three Sisters • Wooden structures and boats • Iroquois • Confederation of tribes – political structure • Communal societies • Matrilineal in nature
Contact • European contact begins with Columbus • Estimates are 60-70 million pre-Columbian Native Americans in W. Hemisphere (about 3-10 million north of Mexico) • Columbian Exchange