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1. A Continent of Villages to 1500. A Continent of Villages to 1500. The First American Settlers The Development of Farming Farming in Early North America Cultural Regions of North America on the Eve of Colonization Conclusion.
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1 A Continent of Villages to 1500
A Continent of Villages to 1500 • The First American Settlers • The Development of Farming • Farming in Early North America • Cultural Regions of North America on the Eve of Colonization • Conclusion
Painting of Cahokia Mounds, Collinsville, Illinois by Michael Hampshire.
A Continent of Villages • What does the chapter title suggest about North American Indian societies before 1500?
Chapter Focus Questions • How were the Americas first settled? • In what ways did native communities adapt to the distinct regions of North America? • What were the consequences of the development of farming for native communities?
Chapter Focus Questions (cont'd) • What was the nature of the Indian cultures in the three regions where Europeans first invaded and settled?
American Communities: Cahokia • Tenth through fourteenth-century urban complex on Mississippi • 20,000-30,000 people by mid-1200 • Highly productive cultivation techniques • Goods for continent-wide trade
American Communities: Cahokia • Center of long-distance trading • City-state—tribute and taxation • Monument mounds • Priests and governors • Huge temple — wealth and power • Mystery well into the 19th century
Who Are the Indian People? • “Indian”—Columbus’ believed he reached the Indies. • Diverse group of people • 2,000 separate cultures • Several hundred languages • Many varying physical characteristics
Who Are the Indian People? (cont'd) • Theories of origin • Degenerate offspring from a superior Old World culture. • Land bridge
Migration from Asia • New genetic research links. • Beringia land bridge. • Glaciers lower sea levels, creating grasslands 750 miles wide from north to south. • Three migrations from Asia beginning about 30,000 years ago • Traveled by land (ice-free corridor) and along coast
Clovis: The First American Environmental Adaptation • New and powerful technology. • More sophisticated style of making fluted blades and lance points. • Named for site of first discovery: Clovis, New Mexico • Mobile, foraging communities of interrelated families. • Clovis bands migrated seasonally to the same hunting camps.
New Ways of Living on the Land • As the last Ice Age ended 15,000 years ago, new climate patterns developed in North America. • Between 10,000 and 2,500 years ago, the modern regions of the continent took shape and, with it, the distinct cultural regions of the Archaic Native American period.
Hunting Traditions • Massive climate shift stressed big game animals • Hunted bison (buffalo) with fast accurate weapons • Folsom tradition • Spear-throwers
Hunting Traditions (cont'd) • Hunting technique of stampeding bison over cliffs. • Sophisticated division of labor and knowledge of food preservation techniques
Example of a projectile point embedded in the ribs of a long extinct species of bison
MAP 1.2 Native North American Culture Areas and Trade Networks, ca. 1400 CE
Desert Culture • Small-game hunting and intensified foraging • seasonal routes of foraging • Skills • fiber baskets for collecting; • pitch-lined baskets for cooking; • nets and traps; • and stone tools.
Desert Culture (cont'd) • Spread to Great Plains and Southwest • West coast developed first permanently settled communities in North America
Forest Efficiency • Eastern North America a vast forest • Archaic developments: • small-game hunting; • gathering seeds, nuts, roots, and other plants; • burning woodlands, prairies to stimulate growth of berries, fruits, and roots; • burning created meadows to provide food that attracted grazing animals for hunting; and fishing.
Forest Efficiency (cont'd) • Populations grew, permanent settlements • Men and women in different roles
Mesoamerican maize cultivation, as illustrated by an Aztec artist for the Florentine Codex
Mexico • First cultivated maize about 5,000 years ago • Crops: potatoes, beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, avocados, chocolate, and vanilla. • Sedentary lifestyle and rise of large, urban complexes • Teotihuacán—200,000 inhabitants.
Mexico (cont'd) • Elite class of rulers and priests, monumental public works, and systems of mathematics and hieroglyphic writing • Toltecs and Aztecs succeeded Teotihuacán culture
Mexico (continued) • Early 1500s, Tenochtitlán — a city of 200,000, larger than any in Europe • Yucatan • Maya flourished from 300 BCE to 900 CE, developing advanced writing and calendar systems and sophisticated mathematics.
Increasing Social Complexity • Farming stimulated complexity • Clans bound people into tribe • Led by clan leaders of chiefs and advised by councils of elders • Chiefs were responsible for collection, storage, and distribution of food. • Gender-divided labor • Marriage ties generally weak
Increasing Social Complexity (cont'd) • Growing populations required larger food surpluses, leading to war
The creation of man and woman depicted on a pot (dated about 1000 CE)
The Resisted Revolution • Change a gradual process • Costs and benefits—farmers worked harder than foragers, less flexible, and more vulnerable • Rejection of farming: climate, abundant food sources, cultural values
The Resisted Revolution (cont'd) • Foraging: provided varied diet, less influenced by climate, required less work • Farmers: more disease and famine than foragers • Favorable climate needed for farming.
Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado
Farmers of the Southwest • Farming emerged in southwest in first millennium B.C.E • The Mogollon • First in settled farming life: maize, beans, squash • Pit houses in permanent villages near streams
Farmers of the Southwest (cont'd) • The Hohokam • Maize, beans, squash, tobacco, cotton • Villages: floodplain of the Salt and Gila rivers (C.E. 300 to 1500) • First irrigation system • Shared traits with Mesoamerican civilization
The Anasazis • Farming culture • Plateau of Colorado River—Four Corners (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico) • Densely populated, multistoried apartment complexes (pueblos) • High-yield maize in irrigated terraced fields • Hunting with bow and arrow • 25,000+ known communities
The Anasazis (cont'd) • Farming culture • Declined due to extended drought and arrival of Athapascan migrants
Farmers of the Eastern Woodlands • Farming culture in eastern North America was dated from the first appearance of pottery about 3,000 years ago. • Woodland culture combined hunting and gathering with farming • Sunflowers, small grains, tobacco • Developed a complex social structure
Farmers of the Eastern Woodlands (cont'd) • Adena culture occupied Ohio Valley • Established custom of large burial mounds for leaders
Mississippian Society • Introduction of bow and arrow, development of Northern Flint maize, and switch from digging sticks to hoes were basis of Mississippian culture. • Developed sophisticated maize farming • Centered around permanent villages on Mississippi River floodplain, with Cahokia as urban center • Sites from Oklahoma to Arkansas to Alabama to Georgia have been excavated.
The Politics of Warfare and Violence • River systems—trading partners and rivals • Warfare predated the colonial era • Hunters led small raids on farming communities. • Farming communities fought to gain land for cultivation. • Highly organized tribal armies • Bow and arrow—deadly weapon • Scalping—warring tribes.
The Politics of Warfare and Violence (cont'd) • Warfare predated the colonial era • Eventually, many cities collapsed and people scattered, forming small decentralized communities.
Bottle in the shape of a nursing mother (dated about 1300 BCE)
Cultural Regions of North America on the Eve of Colonization