Chapter 2 – The Earliest Americans pg 54

Chapter 2 – The Earliest Americans pg 54 “It is from this land that we obtained the timber and stone for our homes and kivas.” -Hopi, as quoted by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. in 500 Nations, 1994

Lesson 1, page 56The First Americans • Thousands of years ago, our land was very different from what it is today • The Earth has had periods of Ice Ages, long freezes, and during these times, the climate is so cold that huge, slow moving sheets of ice, called glaciersformed and covered parts of the Earth. This caused the ocean levels to drop, which caused a bridge of land between Asia and North America.

The Land Bridge Theory • The land bridge is called Beringia, named after the Bering Strait. • Hunters crossed the bridge between 12,000 and 40,000 years ago. The migration, movement of people, took thousands of years. • The climate began to warm, the glaciers melted and oceans rose, burying the land bridge. • These people became the first Americans.

New Discoveries • This is one theory, or possible explanation, of how the first Americans arrived. • Archaeologists are scientists who study cultures.They think that people may have arrived earlier than the land bridge theory because they have found artifacts, objects made by early people, that date between 14,000 and 19,000 years old. • Arrival by boats was possible because evidence found that they ate fish that can only be caught far from the shore

Origin Stories • Descendants, a person’s child, grandchild, or later relative, told stories, called origin stories, to explain the beginnings of the Native American people. • Ancestors, or early family members, do not always have stories to tell.

Skill lesson-Reading Time lines pg 60-61 • A time line is a diagram that shows events that took place during a certain period of time. • Like a ruler marked in years instead of inches, the earliest date is on the left or at the top • Time periods- • Decade 10 years • Century 100 years • Millennium 1,000 years

Time Lines, Cont. • B.C. means “before Christ” A.D. is short for the Latin words Anno Domini, which means “in the year of the Lord.” • B.C.E. stands for Before Common Era. It is sometimes used in place of B.C. and C.E. meaning Common Era. It can be used in place of A.D.

Practice work in your Output page • With the partners at your table, you will create a time line of Lesson 1: The First Americans. For your time line, round our current year to 2000. Remember this is listed last. • If an event occurred more than 2,000 years ago, use the label B.C. • Example: If an event occurred 5,000 years ago, round off the current year to 2000 and subtract that number from 5,000 and your answer will be 3,000 B.C. • Let’s see how you and your partner(s) do!

Lesson 2, page 62Ancient Indians • The ancient American Indians and their descendants slowly moved throughout the Americas, settled in different regions, and developed many different ways of life.

Hunters and Gatherers • Ancient American Indians depended on giant animals, like mastodons and mammoths, for meat, fur, skins, and bones to eat, make clothing, shelter, and tools. • These tribes were nomads, wanderers with no settled home, they spent most of their day hunting.

A Time of Change • The climate became warmer and drier and these giant animals became extinct, or died out. • People began to fish and hunt smaller animals and eat a greater variety of plants. This marked the start of agriculture, or farming. • About 5,000 years ago, the Ancient Indians began to form separate groups, or tribes, who shared a language and customs.

Early Civilizations • A civilization is culture with cities, government, religion, and learning. Some of the earliest civilizations in America were the Olmecs, the Maya, the Mound Builders, and the Anasazi. • Olmecs-lived in Southeastern Mexico • Had their own calendar and number system, and form of writing • Shared their ideas throughtrade with other groupslike the Mayans

Early Civilizations, Cont • Maya • Lived South of the Olmecs, in the Yucatan Peninsula • They had social classes, with the priests being at the top of classes, then important families, then traders and craftspeople, the farmers, and the slaves at bottom • Slavery is holding people against their will and making them carry out orders

Early Civilizations, Cont • Mound Builders built mounds of earth used for burial or places of worship: • Adenas-lived in the Ohio River valley • Hopewells-central U.S. • Mississippian-lived in the Mississippi River valley • Anasazi “Ancient People” • Southwestern U.S. • Lived in pueblos, groups of houses built next to or on top of each other

Output Page • Today we are creating a Thinking Map called “Whole-Part Relationship.” • From the notes, choose one tribe of Native Americans and create this thinking map. • One example has been done for you: Mastodon Ancient Indians Mammoth Meat, Fur, Skins, Bones Meat , Fur, Skins, Bones

Skill lesson-Cultural Map pg 68-69 • These types of maps can help you make a generalization, or statement that summarizes groups of facts and shows relationships among them, about a place • Map on pg 69 shows the early native American cultural regions, which are based on location, landforms, climate, and vegetation

Practice • Identify the color that covers most of the eastern half of what is today the United States. What generalization can you make about the people who lived there? • Light green; most of the people who lived in the eastern half of the US shared a similar culture • Which three cultural regions included parts of present-day Oregon? • Northwest Coast, Plateau, Great Basin

Practice • What generalizations can you make about early Native American cultures in the present-day states of New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida? • People from each place had different cultures, maybe from their different environments

Lesson 3, page 70The Desert Southwest • The Southwest has intense heat in the day followed by bitter cold at night and can go weeks without any precipitation. These people had to learn to adapt (fit their way of living to the land and the environment)to this harsh environment.

The Pueblo Peoples • Tribes who lived in pueblos, such as the Hopis and the Zunis, became known as the Pueblo peoples. • Homes were made from adobe, stones, and rarely trees. • The Staple, or main, foods were corn, beans, and squash. They also grew cotton so they had to irrigate the land. • Pueblo peoples believed in gods of the sun, rain, and Earth and they had spirits called kachinas that visited Earth yearly.

Desert Newcomers • The Navajo were nomads prior to moving to the Southwest in A.D. 1025 when they settled in the Four Corners (where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet). • Since the Hopi lived in this area, the Navajo learned from them. • They lived in cone-shaped homes, called hogans, which were built by covering a log frame with bark and mud.

Output page • Answer the following questions: • What did the people living in the Southwest have to adapt to? • They had to adapt to intense heat, bitter cold, and weeks without precipitation. • Who are the Pueblo people and what was their staple? • The Pueblo people are tribes that live in pueblos. • Which tribe were considered to be Nomads? • The Navajo were considered to be nomads. • What are hogans? • Hogans are cone shaped homes made from log frames covered with bark and mud.

Lesson 4, pg 76The Northwest Coast and the Arctic • The Indians of the Northwest Coast (along the Pacific Coast from northern California to Alaska) and the Arctic (present-day Northern Alaska and Canada) lived in a land filled with rivers and forests.

River Traders • The Indians of the Northwest Coast had little agriculture, but plenty of fish, deer, bears, and other animals. • They used trees for boats, houses, and tools and traded in the summer months with other tribes for anything else they needed.

The Chinooks • They were the best-known traders among the Northwest Coast Indians • Held potlatches, celebrations of feasting and dancing, to show their wealth

The Makahs and the Kwakiutls • The Makahs lived in what is now Washington and hunted whales at sea, for which they spent months preparing for them. They madeharpoons, long spear with a sharp point, and their canoes could carry about 60 people. • They lived in wooden houses along the shore like the Kwakiutl, who captured whales only if they became stranded on shore. Kwakiutl lived in western Canada and Vancouver Island.

The Inuit • Arctic Indians who lived in northern Alaska and Canada in land that stays frozen much of the year so they cannot farm. They got most of their food, clothing, and shelter from the animals they hunted-seals, walrus, caribou and whales. • In the summer they lived in tents made of animal skins, and they lived in igloos in the winter.

Lesson 5, page 81The Plains • The Plains Indians who lived between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains used buffalo, or the American bison, as their second most important resource.Their most important resource was water. Bison used to be so plentiful, that herds seem to blacken the horizon.

Life on the Plains • Men hunted buffalo, women skinned them (the skin was used to make clothing, blankets, and moccasins), and prepared the meat. Some meat was eaten right away, the rest was dried (kind of like beef jerky) for winter when there would be no buffalo to hunt. • Buffalo stomachs were used to carry water, their hair was twisted into cords, and tools and needles were made from the bones and horns.

Farmers and Hunters • Mandans, Pawnees, Wichitas, and Sioux lived in the eastern part of the plains. They were farmers and hunters. • Villages were made up of circular houses called lodges, in the northern areas, they were covered with sod, earth cut into blocks held together by grass and roots. In the southern areas, they were covered with grass or animal skins. In each of these lived several families. • Farms were more like gardens and produced beans, corn, squash and sunflowers.

Great Plains Nomads • Western part of the Great Plains: Crows, Cheyennes, Kiowas followed the buffalo, so they had no permanent homes. • This is where the tepees come from: they used the skin of the buffalo to cover wooden poles, and they used dried buffalo droppings, called chips as fuel for their fires.

Lesson 6 p. 86The Eastern Woodlands • This region covers most of the area east of the Mississippi River. • Tribes here include the Algonquin and the Iroquois • Trees were plentiful and used for canoes, shelter, and food: walnuts, hickory nuts, chestnuts, and maple sugar.

Life in the Eastern Woodlands • People here in the northern section were hunters and gatherers and in the southern portion were farmers. • Slash and burn agriculture-method of clearing trees by cutting and burning them. • Lived off the land-gathered nuts, berries, fruits, shellfish, hunted beaver, deer, birds, used hides for clothing, blankets, and robes. • Algonquians lived near the coast, Iroquois lived inland.

Algonquins • Delawares, Wampanoags, Powhatans, Algonkins, Chippewas, and the Miamis • 10-20 wigwams, bark-covered shelters, were grouped around a courtyard area. • Strings of beads made from seashellswere calledwampumand were used to keep records and send messages, as well as gifts or in trade for bartered goods.

Iroquois • The Five Nations: Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks lived by the New York/Canadian border. • Lived in longhouses, long wooden buildings made of elm bark in which several families would live. • The Five Nations formed the Iroquois League, which was a confederation, a loose group of governments working together.

Skill Lesson-Resolve Conflict • Compromise-you give up some of what you want in order to reach an agreement. This allows you to resolve (settle) conflicts. • Step 1: Tell what you want • Step 2: Decide what is most important to you • Step 3: Present a plan for compromise • Step 4: Talk about differences • Step 5: Present another plan • Step 6: Agree on a plan • Step 7: Set up a compromise

Chapter 2 – The Earliest Americans pg 54