Pre-Columbian America

1. Pre-Columbian America U.S. History, Fall 2002

2. Problem of Prehistory • First Immigrants and Major Eras • Cultural Diversity in Post-Archaic Period • Mississippian: Cahokia and Hopewell • Eastern Woodlands: Iroquois • The Southwest: Anasazi

3. Problem of Prehistory • Primarily non-literate: very few documents for historians to examine • European conquerors systematically destroyed many of the documents that existed

4. Problem of Prehistory • Primarily non-literate: very few documents for historians to examine • European conquerors systematically destroyed many of the documents that existed • European bias: • most of the existing documents that describe Indian cultures written by Europeans or by Indians being watched by Europeans

5. Problem of Prehistory • Primarily non-literate: very few documents for historians to examine • European conquerors systematically destroyed many of the documents that existed • European bias: • most of the existing documents that describe Indian cultures written by Europeans or by Indians being watched by Europeans • Break with oral culture: • religious conversion, demographic collapse, and loss of culture makes evidence from Indian oral tradition problematic

6. Problem of Prehistory • Primarily non-literate: very few documents for historians to examine • European conquerors systematically destroyed many of the documents that existed • European bias: • most of the existing documents that describe Indian cultures written by Europeans or by Indians being watched by Europeans • Break with oral culture: • religious conversion, demographic collapse, and loss of culture makes evidence from Indian oral tradition problematic Therefore: Archaeology, Carbon-14 dating, dendro-chronology

7. First Immigrants and Major Eras • Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE)

8. First Immigrants and Major Eras • Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE) • Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)

9. First Immigrants and Major Eras • Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE) • Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE) • Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE)

10. First Immigrants and Major Eras • Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE) • Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE) • Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Post-Archaic (500 BCE-Contact)

11. Beringia (30-12,000 BCE) Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level (global warming in reverse)

13. Beringia (30-12,000 BCE) Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level (global warming in reverse) Land bridge created between Asia and North America

15. Beringia (30-12,000 BCE) Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level (global warming in reverse) Land bridge created between Asia and North America Old and New Worlds meet for first time in millions of years (since Pangean supercontinent broke up)

16. 100 Million Years Ago

17. Present Day Continents

18. Beringia (30-12,000 BCE) Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level (global warming in reverse) Land bridge created between Asia and North America Old and New Worlds meet for first time in millions of years (since Pangean supercontinent broke up) Indians enter a world without humans, and so have many advantages in conquering the continents

19. Mammoths on the Land Bridge

20. Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE) • Technological breakthrough: Flaked point spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom)

21. Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE) • Technological breakthrough: Flaked point spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom) food sources more reliable

22. Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE) • Technological breakthrough: Flaked point spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom) food sources more reliable more stable habitation

23. Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE) • Technological breakthrough: Flaked point spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom) food sources more reliable more stable habitation population increases

24. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Warming climate and “Pleistocene Overkill”

25. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Warming climate and “Pleistocene Overkill” dwindling game supply

26. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Warming climate and “Pleistocene Overkill” dwindling game supply transition to agriculture (the “Neolithic revolution”)

27. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Central Mexicans were the first to transition to agriculture around 7,000 BCE (maize)

28. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Central Mexicans were the first to transition to agriculture around 7,000 BCE (maize) slowly spreads outward (primarily by the efforts of women)

29. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE) • Central Mexicans were the first to transition to agriculture around 7,000 BCE (maize) slowly spreads outward (primarily by the efforts of women) Demands of farming (long period between planting and farming, need for irrigation)more complex societies, hierarchy, specialization, trade

30. Post-Archaic (500 BCE-Contact) Marked by growing cultural diversity: • 9 major cultural groups • 2,000 cultures

31. Cultural Diversity in the Post-Archaic Period Diversity between and within groups increased • Diversity between groups facilitated by many different ecological/climate zones in the Americas

32. Climate Zones Arctic Temperate Tropical Tropical Arctic

33. Cultural Diversity in the Post-Archaic Period Diversity between and within groups increased • Diversity between groups was facilitated by many different ecological/climate zones in the Americas • Diversity within groups grew through trade and specialization: individuals focused on their particular skills (politics, pottery, hunting, art, religion, jewelry)

34. Cultural Diversity: Mississippian/Hopewell • Major trading culture that dominated from Wisconsin to Louisiana

36. Cultural Diversity: Mississippian/Hopewell • Major trading culture that dominated from Wisconsin to Louisiana • Major urban area: Cahokia: trading/political/religious center • 30,000 residents in 1200 AD

37. Cahokia

38. Burial Mound

39. Geometric Mounds

40. Animal Mounds

41. Collapse of Mississippian/Hopewell Cahokia eventually collapsed in part because the Indians over-farmed the area and could no longer support such a large, urban population. Competition from neighboring tribes and disease introduced by Europeans also may have led to their collapse.

42. Cultural Diversity: Iroquois • The Iroquois lived in the Great Lakes Region and were primarily hunters and gatherers, although they farmed to a limited degree

43. Cultural Diversity: Iroquois • The Iroquois lived in the Great Lakes Region and were primarily hunters and gatherers, although they farmed to a limited degree • They lived in villages made of wooden longhouses

45. Iroquois Man

46. Cultural Diversity: Iroquois • Iroquois society appears to have been matrilineal: property was owned by women and was passed from mother to daughter; women had important powers in society

47. Iroquois Woman

48. Cultural Diversity: Iroquois • The Iroquois League brought together the Six Nations into a political and military alliance • The Iroquois went to war with their neighbors, especially in order to kidnap Indians who would often be adopted into Iroquois society • The Iroquois were feared by many other tribes in the Great Lakes Region (some of whom would align with the Europeans for protection against the Iroquois)

49. Cultural Diversity: Anasazi • The Anasazi are the ancestors of the Hopi and Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest • The Anasazi built some of the most populated cities in the world at the height of their civilization

50. Chaco Canyon • The largest Anasazi community was Chaco Canyon, an area in present-day northwestern New Mexico that contained 12 cities.