1. NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES
EARLY SOCIETIES
NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS
SHARED BELEIFS

2. I CAN
Identify 2 types of Early Societies in North America and Explain where and how they lived
Define totems
List 3 cultural regions of Native North Americans
State 2 examples of shared beliefs between Native North Americans

3. EARLY SOCIETIES Earliest people in N America- hunters & gathers
After about 5000 BC some learned to farm and lived in villages
Not as populated as South America and Mesoamerica; they were complex societies before Europeans

4. EARLY SOCIETIES Anasazi
Present day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah
Dry environment, but grew maize, squash & beans
Learned how to use irrigation to increase food production

5. EARLY SOCIETIES Anasazi Dwellings
Early lived in pit houses dug into the ground
After 750 AD began to build pueblos (aboveground houses made of heavy clay called adobe)
Built them on top of each other, multi-storied (some housed about 1000 people)
Cliff Dwellers- built houses in canyon walls, only be reached by ladder. WHY? Protection from enemies

6. Cliff Dwellers

7. DECLINE OF THE ANASAZI Drought Disease
Or invasions from nomadic tribes from the North
Might have caused them to move

8. MOUND BUILDERS Eastern part of North America Farming societies
Hopewell
Lived along the Mississippi, Ohio, and lower Missouri River valleys
Agriculture and Trade
Built large burial mounds to honor their dead
Declined around 700AD

9. MOUND BUILDERS Mississippian- same area as the Hopewell
Skilled farmers and traders
Built large settlements; largest city Cahokia, near present day St. Louis (30,000)
Mounds- had flat tops and temples were built on top of the mound.
Mounds could be up to 100ft tall and cover 16 acres
Mound builders had declined by time Europeans arrived

10. Mound Builders

11. NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS
Sub-artic
Followed seasonal migrations of deer
Lived in shelters from animal skins and log homes
Further south they had a rich supply of fish, plants, and animals. So developed large villages, without the need to farm

12. NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS
SEE MAP on PG 13
Pacific Northwest
Carved images of totems– ancestor or animal spirits, on tall wooden poles
Great religious and historical signficance
West and Southwest California Region
* Food sources were plentiful
* lived in large families or groups
* over 100 different languages spoken
Great Basin
Little Rain, so they gathered seeds, dug roots, trapped small animals
Southwest
Pueblo groups, like the Anasazi, irrigated. Focused on Rain and successful maize. Large towns

13. NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS
Great Plains
Northeast and Southeast
Mainly grasslands, home to buffalo, deer, elk, and more
Nomadic hunters– used bow and arrows, would often chase over cliffs, or into a corral
Used buffalo hides for teepees, and used almost all of the buffalo for something.
Some tribes were matrilineal-traced ancestry through mothers.
Eastern N America rich in resources
Animals, plants, wood, fish,
Cherokee, Creek, Seminole lived in farming villages governed by village councils
Northern groups did more hunting
Southern Groups- more farmers, hunters, and traders

14. NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS
Northeast and Southeast
Iroquois
Created the Iroquois league
An alliance or confederation, that protected each other from non-iroquois groups.
The league helped them to become one of the most powerful Native Americans peoples in North America

15. SHARED BELEIFS RELIGION PROPERTY LINKED TO NATURE
SPRIRITUAL FORCES WERE EVERYWHERE- HEAVENLY BODIES AND ON EARTH
HONORED SPIRITS DAILY
CEREMONIES MAINTAINED THE GROUP’S RELATIONSHIP TO EARTH AND SKY
INVIDUAL OWNERSHIP ONLY TO CROPS YOU GREW
LAND ITSELF WAS EVERYONE. RIGHT TO USE IT WAS TEMPORARY
PRESERVE LAND FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS (not like Europeans)
LITTLE INTEREST- IN LG POLITICAL UNITS. SO NO LG EMPIRES LIKE AZTECS OR INCA OF MESOAMERICA