Pre-Columbian North American Civilizations

Pre-Columbian North American CivilizationsBy Mr. Jack

347-350 The Americas at EdmoudoHW 1,2,4 page350

We will be going way back in time, so we have to rely on archeology rather thanhistory.

History the study of written artifacts

Archeology the study of artifacts.

The Americas 38,000 BCE-1500 CE

The early inhabitants of the Americas traveled from Asia across a land bridge produced by the Ice Age.

Geography influenced the development of several cultures in North America.

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Back to Paleolithic times

We will look at four of the many North American cultures and how geography and climate effect them.

The InuitThe Mound BuildersThe IroquoisThe Anasazi

tundra

Tundra tndr/Nouna vast, flat, treeless Arctic region of Europe, Asia, and North America in which the subsoil is permanently frozen.

38,000 BCE Human Migrations

Between 100,000 and 8,000 years ago, the last IceAge had low sea levels that made a land bridge in the Bering Strait between Asia and North America

Most likely, they were hunters chasing the herds of bison and caribou that looked for grazing land in North America.

About 3000 B.C. E, a group of Mesolithic people called the Inuit moved into North America from Asia.

Mesolithic Age : the stone age period when Humans made more tools and homes out of wood, and domesticated the wolves.

They made a variety of tools, harpoons and spears fromantler or narwhal tusks.

The Inuit became skilled at hunting seal, caribou, and fish, providing them with both food and clothing.

In winter, the Inuit built homes of stones and turf.

They built igloos as temporary shelter used while traveling.

They not only domesticated wolves for hunting , but also transportation.

The Inuit tribes still inhabit parts of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland today.

Share with your shoulder partner ways in which the Inuitsenvironment shaped their culture.

The Mound Builders

The Mound BuildersAround 1000 B.C., a Woodland period semi Neolithic culture flourished on both sides of the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

People here grew some crops but also continued to gather food.

The Hopewell peoples, (Mound Builders) built earth mounds used as tombs or for ceremonies.

Some were built in the shape of animal

Around 700, they began full time Neolithic farming, making a prosperous culture called the Mississippi.

Mississippian cultureThey grew corn, squash, and beans, together to give plants nutrients, support, and shade.

Between A.D. 850 and A.D. 1150, Cahokia was the seat of government for the Mississippian culture.

The center of the city has a burial mound over 98 feethigh with a base larger than Kufus GreatPyramid in Egypt.

In the thirteenth century, for reasons unknown, Cahokia collapsed.

The Iroquois tribesTemperateDeciduous Forest

Temperate deciduous forests are dominated by trees that lose their leaves each year. They have warm, moist summers and snowy winters.

The Iroquois lived in villages made up of of longhouses surrounded by a wooden fence.

They built longhouses on wooden poles. Each from 150 to 200 feet long, housing about a dozen families.

Iroquois men hunted . As warriors, they protected the community.

Women owned the dwellings and did the farming.

The most important crops the three sisterscorn, beans, and squash.

Was their society matriarchal or a patriarchal?

Their creation myth reflects the dominance of women and importance of animals.

Each Iroquois group was made up of clans.

Clan noun plural noun: clansa group of close-knit and interrelated families

The women of each clan elected a well-respected woman as the clan mother.

The clan mothers, chose the male members of the Grand Council.

The Grand Council had 50 representatives.

The Grand Council met regularly to settle differences among league members.

In the 1500s Deganawida and Hiawatha advocated the Great Peace, creating a strong alliance for peace called the Iroquois League.

In all of your acts, self-interest shall be castaway. Look and listen for the welfare of the wholepeople, and have always in view . . . the unborn ofthe future Nation.

In 1754, Benjamin Franklin used the Iroquois League as a model for a Plan of Union for the British colonies.

American Revolution During the American Revolution , the Iroquois divided the League with a few tribes joining the Americans, most sided with the British.

Those that sided with the British fled to Canada, and those with the USA moved West after the war.

Neolithic Peoples of the Southwest: The Anasazi

From 500-1200, the Anasazi peoples made a large Neolithic farming society in Arizona, New Mexico. .

The Anasazi used canals and earthen dams to turn parts of the desert into fertile gardens

They used stone and adobe (sun-dried brick) to build pueblos

Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico,they built an elaborate center for their civilization

Chaco Canyon (Pueblo Bonito) has eight hundred rooms housing more than a thousand people.

Geometric Pottery

50-year s of drought led the Anasazi to abandon it.

The Anasazi moved to southern Colorado, at Mesa Verde (today a United States national park).

However, a prolonged drought in the late thirteenth century led to the abandonment of Mesa Verde.

Daily life as an Anasazi .

Back to Paleolithic times