1. The First Americans: Prehistory - 1492
North American Peoples

2. Early Native Americans
Long before the Europeans came in 1500’s CE
Many native cultures…
Rose
Flourished
Disappeared
Most advanced
Hohokam (Southwest)
Anasazi (Southwest)
Mound Builders (Ohio River Valley)

3. The Hohokam Present-day Arizona Believed from Mexico
Dry, hot desert
Area b/t Gila and Salt River Valleys
Believed from Mexico
Came around 300BCE
Flourished 300CE-1300CE
squeezing every drop of water
Life depended on irrigation
100’s miles of channels bringing H2O
Left behind…
Pottery
Carved stone
Shells etched w/ acid (acquired in trade from coastal people)
Hohokam: Skywatchers (9:07)

4. The Anasazi
1CE-1300CE
4 Corners (where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico meet)
Built great stone dwellings
Pueblo Bonita
Spanish for pretty village
Stone and sun-dried clay
4 stories high
800+ rooms and 32 kivas!!!
Cliff Dwellings
Carved & built into walls of cliffs
Mesa Verde
1000’s of inhabitants
Easy to defend
Protection from winter weather
Complex system of roads linking the villages
Env’t issues finally caused demise
Drought
Etc.
Anasazi: People of Peace (4:29)

5. The Mound Builders Earthen mounds dot US landscape Major Builders…
Not work of a single group, but many called, the Mound Builders
Earliest built around 1000BCE
Some shape of pyramids; some elaborate animals
Some contain burial chambers
From Pennsylvania to Mississippi River
As far north as Great Lakes and south as far as Florida
Major Builders…
Adena 800BCE
Ohio Valley
hunter-gatherers
Hopewell 200BCE-500CE
Farmers and traders
Burial mounds in shape of birds, snakes, alligators
Mound Builders (4:56)

6. Cahokia Largest settlement of mound builders
Built by Mississippians
Present-day Illinois
Largest mound (Monk’s Mound)- 100ft!!!
Looks like cities of Aztecs even though more than 2,000 miles away
Believed they travelled from Mexico through Gulf and up the Mississippi River
Dominated by pyramid-shaped mounds

7. The First Americans: Prehistory - 1492
North American Peoples

8. Modern Native Americans
As early groups faded away…
Other rise to take their place
Europeans arrive and NA full of many new, different native cultures
Modern Natives are the ones we think of today
Wherever they lived and how…
Did what best suited their environment
All of this will change when the “white man” arrives!!!

9. Peoples of the North Inuit
People who settled northernmost part of NA
Land surrounding Arctic Ocean
Believed to be the last to pass over Beringia
Many skills (brought from original home in Siberia)
Winter they built igloos
Made of blocks of ice and snow to protect from extreme cold
Cloths made of furs and sealskin
Made both warm and waterproof
Hunters and Fisherman
Coastal Waters
Whales, seals, and walruses
Skin-covered boats
Land
Hunted caribou
Made cloths from hides and burned seal- oil lamps

10. Peoples of the West
Mild climate and dependable food = good place for many different groups
California
Great variety of cultures
Northern Coast
Fished for their food
Southern Deserts
Nomadic groups gathered roots and seeds
Central Valley
Pomo people
Women gathered acorns and pounded into flour
Great Basin
Area b/t Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mts.
Dry climate, hard rocky soil
Ute and Shoshone
Traveled for food, nomadic
Ate small game, nuts, berries, roots, and insects
Northwest Coast
Tlingit, Haida, Chinook
Used resources of forest and sea
Built
wooden houses, canoes, cloth, baskets from tree bark
Spears and traps
Fished for salmon
Main food source
Smoked over fires to preserve
Plateau
Area b/t Cascade and Rocky Mts.
Nez Perce and Yakima
Hunted deer in forests
Gathered roots and berries
Made earthen houses

11. Peoples of the Southwest
Descendents of Anasazi
Hopi, Acoma, Zuni
Built homes of adobe
Raised maize (main)
Beans, squash, pumpkins, melons, and fruit
Part of major trade network
Into SW and Mexico
1500’s
2 new groups settled in area
Apache and Navajo
Hunter-gatherers
Deer and other game
Eventually…
Became stationary
Permanent homes called Hogans
Grew maize
Raised sheep

12. People of the Plains Nomadic 1500’s Spanish brought horses to Mexico
Temporary villages (growing season)
Tepees
Men hunted antelope, deer but mainly buffalo
Women grew plots of maize, beans, squash
1500’s Spanish brought horses to Mexico
Some got out migrated North
Tamed wild horses
Became skilled riders who hunted, and fought from backs
Used spears, bows, clubs, and knives

13. People of the NE Woodlands
Northeast Woodlands
Iroquois and Cherokee
Complex political systems to govern nations
Longhouses
Used forest to hunt and grow crops
Deer, corn, beans, squash
Iroquois near Canada, now northern NY
5 nations
Onondaga, Seneca, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga
Warred w/ each other until 1500’s
Joined together to form Iroquois Confederacy
Women ruled; chose the men for the tribal council
1st Constitution in the new world

14. People of the Southeast
Woodland, but warmer climate
Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Catawba
Creek: farming villages (GA, ALAB)
Corn, tobacco, squash, etc.
Chickasaw: now Miss.
Farmed river bottoms
Cherokee and Catawba
Farmed mts. of GA and Carolinas