Native Americans Native Americans were the people who lived in America before people from other countries came here.

Native Americans respected nature. They took care of the earth and only used what they needed.

Native Americans used natural resources to meet their needs. Natural resources are things in nature that people can use. treeswaterstonesbuffalo

 Native Americans lived in culture groups.  The people in a culture group have the same way of life.  A culture group is a group of people who live in the same region.

Native Americans lived in six different regions.

Each region had different physical surroundings. Others were mostly desert. Some regions had forests.

Still others had oceans nearby.

Each region had different natural resources. Each culture group used the natural resources in its region to meet its needs.

Those who lived near deserts used clay or stones to build their homes. For this reason, Native American culture groups had different homes. Those who lived on the Plains used buffalo skins to make their homes. Still others lived near forests. They built their homes of wood.

Many Native American culture groups built their homes in villages or cities. These are the remains of an ancient Anasazi cliff village.

Other culture groups, like the Plains Indians, were nomadic. They could not live in one place. They had to move around to follow the buffalo.

The physical surroundings of each region also affected how each culture group got its food.

The Northwest Coast region had many forests. The Native Americans in this region used wood from the forests to carve tall totem poles. The carvings on each totem pole told about a family’s history.

 Native American culture groups had different ways of life due to their different physical surroundings and natural resources. Let’s review. We know:  Native Americans were the first Americans.  Native Americans respected nature.  Native Americans used natural resources.  Native Americans lived in different regions.  Native Americans had different homes.  Native Americans got food in different ways.