Beginnings:�Native American History

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE IN THE

INDIANS’ “OLD WORLD”?

I. Peopling the Americas

• First people migrated from Siberia about 15,000-30,000 years ago.
• Low sea levels exposed a land bridge connecting Eurasia with North America where the Bering Sea now lies between Siberia and Alaska
• Other theories
• Depending their environment, Indian tribes developed distinct languages, rituals, mythic stories, kinship systems, economic systems, and governments.
• At first nomadic, Indians gradually settled, cultivated land, domesticated animals, and traded.

MIGRATION

Map 1.1 p6

New Evidence about Migration

• Piles of projectile points and other artifacts from TexasPiles of projectile points and other artifacts from Texas suggest a well-established human presence in the region 15,500 years ago and perhaps as much as 20,000 years ago
• A mastodon butchering site in Florida and human coprolites from Oregon are well over 14,000 years old
• Artifacts found at Monte Verde, Chile may be more than 18,000 years old.
• Kelp Highway: early people using boats to follow the nutrient-rich Pacific coastline from Asia and into the Americas millennia before glaciers receded enough to expose land corridors.

II. The Earliest Americans

• The Incas in Peru, the Mayans in Central America, and the Aztecs in Mexico shaped complex civilizations:
• These people built elaborate cities and carried on far-flung commerce.
• They were talented mathematicians.
• They offered human sacrifices to their gods.

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II. The Earliest Americans

• Agriculture, especially corn (maize) growing, became part of Native American civilizations in Mexico and South America.
• Large irrigation systems were created.
• Villages of multistoried, terraced buildings began to appear (Pueblo means “village” in Spanish).
• Social life was less elaborately developed.
• Nation-states did not exist, except the Aztec empire.
• The Mound Builders were in the Ohio River valley.
• The Mississippian settlement was at Cahokia.

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II. The Earliest Americans

• Three-sister farming—maize, beans, and squash—supported dense populations.
• The Iroquois Confederacy developed political and organizational skills.
• The natives had neither the desire nor the means to manipulate nature aggressively.

Questions 1-3 refer to the illustration of the city of Cahokia below.

1. The artist’s rendering of the city of Cahokia best reflects which of the following developments in Native American societies prior to European arrival?

a. Egalitarianism in pre-Columbian societies.

b. Mandated sanctification of nature.

c. Broad-reaching and centralized political economies.

d. The adoption of the three-sister farming by Native peoples.

2. Which Native cultural group is the most similar to the one found in the above artistic rendition?

a. Adena.

b. Mississippian.

c. Iroquois.

d. Hohokam.

3. Which of the following caused the social complexities displayed in the artistic depiction of Cahokia?

a. Agriculture, especially corn growing, by native peoples.

b. The extinction of megafauna by Paleo-Indians in North America.

c. Migration over the Bering land-bridge during the last Ice Age.

d. The development of matrilineal lines of kinship by native societies.

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Are we a nation of immigrants?

• In some respects, yes. But consider the following:
• Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for the indigenous peoples of North America? No.
• Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for enslaved Africans? No.
• Are “immigrants” the appropriate designation for the original European settlers? No.
• So, let’s stop saying “this is a nation of immigrants.”

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• by ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ