1. Do Now Questions
Tens of thousands of years ago, no humans lived in North or South America.
1) Where do you think the first people in the Americas came from?
2) How did they get here?
3) Why did they come?

2. Roots of the American people CH 1

3. The First Americans
Not everyone agrees about how and when people first came into the Americas.
** Americas- plural refers to both North and South America **

4. The First Americans
Historians & Archeologists have to work together through much research to come to conclusions about our past.
Because new artifacts or evidence can be found at any time, our ideas about the past can change and evolve.

5. The First Americans
A primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study.
Primary sources are more factual and help us determine what actually happened.

6. …SO HOW DID HUMANS FIRST GET HERE?
- Some Native Americans believe that their people have always lived in North and South America.
- Stories or oral histories have been passed down over the generations, these stories are usually referred to as creation myths because scientists find them hard to prove.

7. …OR…
Scientists believe that the first Americans actually migrated from ASIA.
These early people were called nomads because they travelled from place to place in search of food.

8. Through years of research, historians have come up with what is known as the Land Bridge Theory.

9. LAND BRIDGE THEORY:
Scientists have found that nomads arrived thousands of centuries ago during the Ice Age.
At that time there were many glaciers on earth. Glaciers are large sheets of floating ice.

10. LAND BRIDGE THEORY:
Glaciers caused the water level to drop, creating a land bridge between Asia and North America.

11. This “land bridge” between Asia and North America allowed migration, or the movement of people for the purpose of searching for food.
- That land bridge, now covered with water, is known as the Bering Strait.

12. Nomads followed herds of animals over the course of thousands of years, these early people stretched throughout the Americas.

13. These ancient Americans and their descendants are known as Native Americans, or Indians.
Over time, Native American societies settled in different areas and developed a variety of languages and customs.

14. Do Now Questions
Tens of thousands of years ago, no humans lived in North or South America.
1) Where do you think the first people in the Americas came from?
2) How did they get here?
3) Why did they come?

15. CH 1-2 NOTES ENVIRONMENTAL ADAPTATION & CULTURES
VOCABULARY:
Culture: ways of life
2. Cultural Area: regions in which groups of people have similar ways of life.

16. After the Ice Age many Native Americans changed their ways of life.
- Once people learned to farm they could stay in one place.
- Groups built shelters, and families gathered into clans.

17. Environmental Adaptation
Natives had to adapt to the environment. Natives lived in areas with different kinds of lands and climates. They developed ways of life, or cultures that were suited to each area.
Environmental Adaptation

18. Geographic Regions

19. North American Life The North The Northwest Coast California
The Inuit and Aleut peoples were skilled at hunting on ice and snow.
Other nomadic groups hunted, fished, and gathered food in present-day Canada and Alaska.
The Northwest Coast
Waterways were the primary source of food for the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast.
California
The Chumash, Yurok, and other Native American groups ate deep-sea fish, food products made with flour from acorns, and beans from the mesquite plant.
The Plateau
The Chinook and Cayuse survived on salmon and edible roots. They built villages on high riverbanks.
The Great Basin
People worked together in small groups to hunt and gather food, including roots, pine nuts, rabbits, and insects.

20. GEOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS
REGION
CLIMATE
HOUSING
Arctic
-bitterly cold
-long, harsh winters
-Igloos: made of blocks of ice
Eastern Woodlands
-mild with 4 seasons
-good farmland
-lots of forests
-sturdy wood framed homes
-Longhouses
-Wigwams
Southeast & Southwest
Very hot
East = humid
West= dry
Houses were built to keep cool
-Adobe = clay huts
Great Plains
-mild
-grasslands, wood was scarce
-plenty of buffalo
- Teepees
Great Basin / Northwest
-plenty of water and forests
-wood framed homes
-longhouses
-wigwams

21. North American Life The Southwest
The Hopis and Zuñis farmed this dry region.
The Plains
Mandans, Wichita, Pawnee, and other groups farmed corn, beans, and squash, and hunted buffalo.
They used dogs as pack animals when they traveled.
The Northeast
Native Americans in this region fished, hunted, and farmed.
Iroquois groups formed an alliance—the Iroquois League—to settle tribal matters.
The Southeast
Inhabitants of the Southeast
region hunted and grew corn
for survival.

22. Shared Customs and Beliefs
Despite their different lifestyles, early Native Americans shared a culture that included a common social structure and religion.
Social Structure — Family relationships, called kinship, determined the social structure. Kinship groups provided medical and child care, settlement of disputes, and education. Kinship groups were organized by clans. A clan is made up of groups of families who are all descended from a common ancestor.
Religion — Early Native Americans believed that the most powerful forces in the world were spiritual. Their religious ceremonies recognized the power of those forces.
Preserving Culture — Early Native Americans relied on oral history to keep their beliefs and customs alive. Through oral history, traditions are passed from generation to generation by word of mouth.

23. Kinship

24. Native American Trade
All Native American groups carried out barter, both within their group and outside it.
Trading food and goods was seen as a show of hospitality, friendship, and respect.
Native American trading routes crisscrossed North America.
Native Americans used natural trade routes, like the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, but they also built a network of trading paths.
These routes often led to centers where Native Americans held trade gatherings during the summer.

25. Native Americans and Land
Native Americans did not trade, buy, or sell land.
They believed that land was part of nature and could not be owned.
The Europeans who arrived in North America in the 1400s did not understand these Indian attitudes about land.
Fundamental differences in beliefs about land would have lasting consequences for both the Native Americans and the European settlers.

26. The importance of buffalo
Mayas / Incas / Aztecs

27. Vocab Definitions
Archeology - is the study of human activity in the past
Geography- is a field of science dedicated to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth.

28. Vocab Definitions
Civilization- the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social development and organization.
Self Sufficient- needing no outside help in satisfying one's basic needs, especially with regard to the production of food.

29. CH 1-4 Notes IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY
Confederacy = a league or an alliance
Do to warfare amongst neighboring tribes, 5 Eastern Woodland tribes will agree to join together.

30. 5 Tribes of the Iroquois: “SCOOM”
S = Seneca
C= Cayuga
O= Onondaga
O= Oneida
M= Mohawk

31. IROQUOIS 2. Iroquois Founder: Hiawatha 3. Home:
New York state which located in the Eastern Woodlands.

32. Several family groups, known as clans lived together in long rectangular shelters called longhouses.

33. Social Organization/ Government
Each village had a leader or a sachem (chief).
- Leader Sachems from each tribe met each year at a grand council to deal with important issues facing the Confederacy.
- The Iroquois Confederacy had it’s own written constitution.
(** The structure of the Iroquois Constitution may have later influenced the US Constitution!)

34. - Communal System of Land = The people of the village did not “own” the land but shared the right to use it.

35. Women held an important role to men!
Holding important positions, like being able to choose the Sachems of each village.

36. Food:
- Men’s role: hunting and fishing
- Women’s role: farming and preparing
- 3-Sisters = corn, beans, and squash