{"id":1914,"date":"2019-08-11T02:31:06","date_gmt":"2019-08-11T02:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jcc-ushistory1os\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=1914"},"modified":"2019-08-23T02:54:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T02:54:04","slug":"the-americas-before-1492","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jcc-ushistory1os\/chapter\/the-americas-before-1492\/","title":{"raw":"The Americas Before 1492","rendered":"The Americas Before 1492"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-highlight\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\nBy the end of this section, you will be able to:\r\n<ul class=\"im_orderedlist\">\r\n \t<li>Explain the significance of the last ice age to the peopling and early history of the Americas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Discuss examples of the achievements of American civilizations before the arrival of the Spanish<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Discuss the differences and similarities found among the foodways, lifestyles, customs, and beliefs of the Native peoples of North America<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_01_01_Timeline\" class=\"timeline\"><\/figure>\r\nNative peoples had lived in the Americas for well over ten thousand years by the time Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492. Spread across a variety of ecosystems from Canada to South America, they spoke hundreds of different languages. Their societies ranged from small agricultural villages and hunting camps to large urban centers. Although estimates vary widely, it is likely that at least 60 million individuals lived in all of the Americas by the time Columbus \u201cdiscovered\u201d the hemisphere. American history rightfully begins with them, not European explorers. But where do their stories start?\r\n<h1>ICE AGE BEGINNINGS<\/h1>\r\n<section id=\"fs-idm48030480\">Native Americans passed stories down through the millennia that tell of their creation and reveal the contours of their ancestors' beliefs. The Salinan people of present-day California, for example, tell of a bald eagle that formed the first man out of clay and the first woman out of a feather.[footnote]A. L. Kroeber, ed., University of California Publications: American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 10 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1911\u20131914), 191\u2013192, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. [\/footnote]\u00a0According to a Lenape tradition, the earth was made when Sky Woman fell into a watery world and, with the help of muskrat and beaver, landed safely on a turtle\u2019s back, thus creating Turtle Island, or North America. A Choctaw tradition locates southeastern peoples\u2019 beginnings inside the great Mother Mound earthwork, Nunih Waya, in the lower Mississippi Valley.[footnote]James F. Barnett Jr., Mississippi\u2019s American Indians (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 90, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote]\u00a0Nahua people trace their beginnings to the place of the Seven Caves, from which their ancestors emerged before they migrated to what is now Central Mexico.[footnote]Edward W. Osowski, Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 25, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote]\u00a0America\u2019s indigenous peoples have passed down many accounts of their origins, written and oral, which share creation and migration histories.<\/section><section>\u00a0<\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1881\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"445\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2015\/08\/02204957\/Map_of_gene_flow_in_and_out_of_Beringia.jpg\"><img class=\" wp-image-1881\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2015\/08\/02204957\/Map_of_gene_flow_in_and_out_of_Beringia.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"445\" height=\"556\" \/><\/a> This map depicts migration patterns across the Bering land bridge that once connected northeast Asia to modern-day Alaska. It traces the possible movements of people beginning about 25,000 years ago.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nArchaeologists and anthropologists, meanwhile, focus on migration histories. Studying artifacts, bones, and genetic signatures, these scholars have pieced together a narrative suggesting that the Americas were once a \u201cnew world\u201d for Native Americans as well.The last global ice age trapped much of the world\u2019s water in enormous continental glaciers. Twenty thousand years ago, ice sheets, some a mile thick, extended across North America as far south as modern-day Illinois. With so much of the world\u2019s water captured in these massive ice sheets, global sea levels were much lower, and a land bridge connected Asia and North America across the Bering Strait. Between twelve and twenty thousand years ago\u2014during what is called the Paleolithic Era\u2014 Native ancestors crossed the ice, waters, and exposed lands between the continents of Asia and America. These mobile\u00a0hunter-gatherers traveled in small bands,\u00a0exploiting vegetable, animal, and marine resources\u00a0into the Beringian tundra at the northwestern edge of North America. DNA evidence suggests that these\u00a0ancestors paused for perhaps 15,000 years in the expansive region between Asia and America.[footnote]David J. Meltzer, First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 170, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. [\/footnote] Other ancestors crossed the seas and voyaged\u00a0along the Pacific coast, traveling along riverways and settling where local ecosystems permitted.[footnote]Knut R. Fladmark, \u201cRoutes: Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America,\u201d American Antiquity 44, no. 1 (1979): 55\u201369, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n<\/section><section><\/section><section><\/section><section><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\">The glacial sheets began to recede around fourteen thousand years ago. Their gradual melting opened a corridor to warmer climates and new resources. Some ancestral communities migrated south and eastward. Evidence\u00a0found at Monte Verde, a site in modern-day Chile, suggests human activity began there at least 14,500 years ago. Similar evidence hints at human settlement in the Florida panhandle at the same time.[footnote]Jessi J. Halligan et al., \u201cPre-Clovis Occupation 14,550 Years Ago at the Page-Ladson Site, Florida, and the People of the Americas,\u201d Science Advances 2, no. 5 (May 13, 2016), as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote] On many points, archaeological and traditional knowledge sources converge: the dental, archaeological, linguistic, oral, ecological and genetic evidence illustrates a great deal of diversity, with numerous different groups settling and migrating over thousands of years, potentially from many different points of origin.[footnote]Tom D. Dillehay, The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory (New York: Basic Books, 2000), as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote] Whether emerging from the earth, water, or sky, being made by a creator, or migrating to their homelands, modern Native American communities recount histories in America that date long before human memory.<\/span><\/section>As the ice age ended and warming temperatures spurred ecological change, Native peoples developed unique subsistence patterns to harness the resources of their particular regions. In the Pacific Northwest, Native groups exploited the great salmon-filled rivers. On the plains and prairie lands, hunting communities followed large game animals such as the bison and moved according to seasonal patterns. In mountains, prairies, deserts, and forests, the cultures and ways of life of paleo-era ancestors were as varied as the geography. These groups spoke hundreds of languages and adopted distinct cultural practices. Rich and diverse diets fueled massive population growth across the continent.\r\n\r\nAgriculture arose sometime between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago, almost simultaneously in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Peoples living in Mesoamerica (the geographic area stretching from north of Panama up to the desert of central Mexico) relied upon domesticated maize (corn) to develop the hemisphere\u2019s first settled population by 1,200 BCE.[footnote]Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America\u2019s First Civilization (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 25, a stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote] Corn was high in caloric content, easily dried and stored, and, in Mesoamerica\u2019s warm and fertile Gulf Coast, could sometimes be harvested twice in a year. The cultivation of corn also spawned the domestication of other crops, including squash and beans.\u00a0For some, agriculture may have accompanied a decline in health. Analysis of remains reveals that societies transitioning to agriculture often experienced weaker bones and teeth.[footnote]Richard H. Steckel, \u201cHealth and Nutrition in Pre-Columbian America: The Skeletal Evidence,\u201d Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 19\u201321, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.[\/footnote] But despite these possible declines, agriculture brought important benefits. Farmers could produce more food than hunters, enabling some members of the community to pursue other skills. Religious leaders, skilled soldiers, and artists could devote their energy to activities other than food production.\r\n<h1>EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF MESOAMERICA<\/h1>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm31997616\">Agriculture ultimately aided the rise of a series of complex civilizations in Mesoamerica. Although marked by great topographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity, these early civilizations shared a number of characteristics. Mesoamericans were <span class=\"no-emphasis\">polytheistic<\/span>; their gods possessed both male and female traits and demanded blood sacrifices of enemies taken in battle or ritual bloodletting. Corn, or maize, domesticated by 5000 BCE, formed the basis of their diet. They developed a mathematical system, built huge edifices, and devised a calendar that accurately predicted eclipses and solstices and that priest-astronomers used to direct the planting and harvesting of crops. Most important for our knowledge of these peoples, they created the only known writing system in the Western Hemisphere; researchers have made much progress in interpreting the inscriptions on their temples and pyramids. Trade over long distances helped diffuse culture. Weapons made of obsidian, jewelry crafted from jade, feathers woven into clothing and ornaments, and cacao beans that were whipped into a chocolate drink formed the basis of commerce.<\/p>\r\nThe \"mother\" of Mesoamerican civilizations was that of the Olmec. Flourishing along the hot Gulf Coast of Mexico from about 1200 to about 400 BCE, the Olmec produced a number of major works of art, architecture, pottery, and sculpture. Most recognizable are their giant head sculptures\u00a0and the pyramid in La Venta. They built impressive aqueducts to transport water into their cities and irrigate their fields. Irrigation allowed them to grow maize, as well as squash, beans, and tomatoes. They also bred small domesticated dogs which, along with fish, provided their protein.They also developed a system of trade throughout Mesoamerica, giving rise to an elite class.\u00a0Although no one knows what happened to the Olmec after about 400 BCE, in part because the jungle reclaimed many of their cities, their culture was the base upon which later Mesoamerican civilizations built. It was the Olmec who worshipped a rain god, a maize god, and the feathered serpent so important in the future pantheons of the Aztecs (who called him Quetzalcoatl) and the Maya (to whom he was Kukulkan).\r\n\r\n<section id=\"fs-idp120873104\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"454\"]<img class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202034\/CNX_History_01_01_Americas.jpg\" alt=\"A map shows the locations of the Olmec, Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations, in, respectively, present-day Mexico; present-day Mexico; present-day Mexico (on the Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula),Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala; and present-day Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.\" width=\"454\" height=\"521\" \/> This map shows the extent of the major civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. In South America, early civilizations developed along the coast because the high Andes and the inhospitable Amazon Basin made the interior of the continent less favorable for settlement.[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp71404736\">After the decline of the Olmec, a city rose in the fertile central highlands of Mesoamerica. One of the largest population centers in pre-Columbian America and home to more than 100,000 people at its height in about 500 CE, Teotihuacan was located about thirty miles northeast of modern Mexico City. Large-scale agriculture and the resultant abundance of food allowed time for people to develop special trades and skills other than farming. Builders constructed over twenty-two hundred apartment compounds for multiple families, as well as more than a hundred temples. Among these were the Pyramid of the Sun (which is two hundred feet high) and the Pyramid of the Moon (one hundred and fifty feet high). The city was also the center for trade, which extended to settlements on Mesoamerica\u2019s Gulf Coast.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp120907584\">Mayan culture had strong ties to Teotihuacan. At its height from roughly 200 CE to 900 CE, Mayan civilization encompassed some fifty urban centers in what is now Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala.\u00a0The Maya\u2019s architectural and mathematical contributions were especially significant. Mayan elites perfected the calendar and written language the Olmec had begun. They devised a written mathematical system to record crop yields and the size of the population, and to assist in trade. They built the city-states of Copan, Tikal, and Chichen Itza along their major trade routes. Within these urban centers stood impressive temples, pyramids, statues of gods, and astronomical observatories. But, for reasons still debated by scholars, Mayan civilization declined by about 900 CE, leaving their large population centers abandoned. Poor soil was likely a contributing factor, along with the exhaustion of resources and a drought that lasted nearly two centuries.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp97753424\">The Spanish found little organized resistance among Mayan descendants when they arrived in the 1520s. However, they did find Mayan history, in the form of glyphs, or pictures representing words, recorded in folding books called codices (the singular is <em>codex<\/em>). In 1562, Bishop Diego de Landa, who feared the converted natives had reverted to their traditional religious practices, collected and burned every codex he could find. Today only a few survive.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_01_01_Chichen\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"463\"]<img class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202037\/CNX_History_01_01_Chichen.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows El Castillo, a stepped pyramid with a set of wide stone steps running up the front and a square structure with an entryway on top.\" width=\"463\" height=\"347\" \/> El Castillo, located at Chichen Itza in the eastern Yucat\u00e1n peninsula, served as a temple for the god Kukulkan. Each side contains ninety-one steps to the top. When counting the top platform, the total number of stairs is three hundred and sixty-five, the number of days in a year. (credit: Ken Thomas)[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-idm73887824\">\r\n<div id=\"fs-idm50516160\" class=\"history my-story\">\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #1d1d1d;font-size: 1.5em;font-weight: bold\">EARLY PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-idm91929888\">\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm45461312\">Native peoples of North America generally developed more dispersed societies than the urban civilizations of Mesoamerica. But largescale population centers developed here, too. Some of the largest culture groups in North America were the Puebloan groups, centered in the Greater Southwest (the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico) and groups living along the great river valleys of the East. Extensive trade networks connected peoples across vast distances. Some of these networks linked the peoples of Mesoamerica with peoples in the southern part of today's United States, leading to cultural exchange as well as the exchange of goods.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2>The Greater Southwest<\/h2>\r\nIn the American Southwest Mesoamerican farming techniques supported a series of societies collectively known as the Pueblo. The Spanish first gave them this name, which means \u201ctown\u201d or \u201cvillage,\u201d because they lived in towns or villages of permanent stone-and-mud buildings with thatched roofs. Like present-day apartment houses, these buildings had multiple stories, each with multiple rooms.\u00a0The three main groups of the Pueblo people were the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi. The Mogollon thrived in the Mimbres Valley (New Mexico) from about 150 BCE to 1450 CE. They developed a distinctive artistic style for painting bowls with finely drawn geometric figures and wildlife, especially birds, in black on a white background. Beginning about 600 CE, the Hohokam built an extensive irrigation system of canals to irrigate the desert and grow fields of corn, beans, and squash. By 1300, their crop yields were supporting the most highly populated settlements in the southwest. The Hohokam decorated pottery with a red-on-buff design and made jewelry of turquoise. In the high desert of New Mexico, the Anasazi, whose name means \u201cancient enemy\u201d or \u201cancient ones,\u201d carved homes from steep cliffs accessed by ladders or ropes that could be pulled in at night or in case of enemy attack.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"387\"]<img class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202043\/CNX_History_01_01_Anasazi.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph of Anasazi cliff dwellings shows blocky adobe structures with window and door openings, some of which are set atop a high, sheer cliff.\" width=\"387\" height=\"258\" \/> To access their homes, the cliff-dwelling Anasazi used ropes or ladders that could be pulled in at night for safety. These pueblos may be viewed today in Canyon de Chelly National Monument (above) in Arizona and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\">Roads extending some 180 miles connected the Pueblos\u2019 smaller urban centers to each other and to Chaco Canyon, which by 1050 CE had become the administrative, religious, and cultural center of their civilization.\u00a0As many as 15,000 people lived in the Chaco Canyon complex in present-day New Mexico<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">.[footnote]Stuart J. Fiedel, Prehistory of the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 217, as stated in The American Yawp, Chapter 1.[\/footnote] O<\/span>ne single building, Pueblo Bonito, stretched over two acres and rose five stories. Its 600 rooms were decorated with copper bells, turquoise decorations, and bright macaws.[footnote]H. Wolcott Toll, \u201cMaking and Breaking Pots in the Chaco World,\u201d American Antiquity 66, no. 1 (January 2001): 65, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff;color: #000000\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\nBut as their population base grew, the peoples of Chaco Canyon faced several ecological challenges. Deforestation and over-irrigation ultimately caused the communities to collapse and residents dispersed to smaller settlements. An extreme fifty-year drought began in 1130. Shortly thereafter, Chaco Canyon was deserted. New\u00a0groups filled this land, including the\u00a0Apache and Navajo, both of whom adopted several Puebloan customs.\r\n<h2>The Mississippi Valley<\/h2>\r\nThe same drought that plagued the Pueblo also likely affected the Mississippian peoples of the American Midwest and South. The Mississippians developed one of the largest civilizations north of modern-day Mexico. Roughly one thousand years ago, the largest Mississippian settlement, now called Cahokia, peaked at a population of between 10,000 and 30,000. Located just east of modern-day St. Louis, Cahokia rivaled contemporary European cities in size. No American city, in fact, would match its peak population levels until after the American Revolution. The city itself spanned five square miles and centered around a large earthen hill that rose ten stories and was larger at its base than the great pyramids of Egypt. The city also contained 120 earthen mounds or pyramids, each dominating a particular neighborhood and on each of which lived a leader who exercised authority over the surrounding area. As in other early cultures, life and death in Cahokia were linked to the movement of the stars, sun, and moon, and their ceremonial earthwork structures reflect these important structuring forces.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1963\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19153717\/Cahokia_1-e1469982797624.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-1963 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19153717\/Cahokia_1-e1469982797624.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" \/><\/a> An artist\u2019s rendering of Cahokia as it may have appeared in 1150 CE. Prepared by Bill Isminger and Mark Esarey with artwork by Greg Harlin for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAround the year 1050, Cahokia experienced what one archaeologist has called a \u201cbig bang,\u201d which included \u201ca virtually instantaneous and pervasive shift in all things political, social, and ideological.\u201d[footnote]14. Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, eds., Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 31, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1[\/footnote]\u00a0The population grew almost 500 percent in only one generation, and new groups were absorbed into the city and its supporting communities.<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">[footnote]Thomas E. Emerson, \u201cAn Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,\u201d Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 137\u2013139, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]<\/span>\u00a0By 1300, the once powerful city had undergone a series of strains that led to collapse. Scholars previously pointed to ecological disaster or slow depopulation through emigration, but new research instead emphasizes\u00a0mounting warfare, or internal political tensions. Environmental explanations suggest that population growth placed too great a burden on the arable land. Others suggest the demand for fuel and building materials led to deforestation, erosion, and an extended drought. Recent evidence, including defensive stockades, suggests that political turmoil among the ruling elite and threats from external enemies may explain the end of the once great civilization.<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">[footnote]16. Thomas E. Emerson, \u201cAn Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,\u201d Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 27: No. 2 (Fall 2002), pp. 137-139, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]<\/span>\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">Explore the grounds of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site as they look today in this <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Tdp2hZG4ky4\">short video<\/a>.<\/div>\r\nLike the cities of Mesoamerica, North American communities were sustained by long distance trading routes. The Mississippi River served as a particularly important trade artery, but all of the continent\u2019s waterways were vital to transportation and communication. Cahokia became a key trading center partly due to its position near the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers. These rivers created networks that stretched from the Great Lakes to the American Southeast. Archaeologists can identify materials, like seashells, that traveled over a thousand miles to reach the center of this civilization. At least 3,500 years ago, the community at what is now Poverty Point, Louisiana, had access to copper from present-day Canada and flint from modern-day Indiana. Sheets of mica found at the Serpent Mound site of the Ohio Valley's Hopewell culture came from the Allegheny Mountains, and obsidian from nearby earthworks came from Mexico. Turquoise from the Greater Southwest was used at Teotihuacan in Mexico 1,200 years ago.\r\n<h2>The Eastern Woodlands<\/h2>\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-idp8778560\">Agriculture also flourished in the fertile river valleys between the Mississippi River and Atlantic Ocean, an area known as the Eastern Woodlands. There, three crops in particular\u2014corn, beans, and squash, known as the \u201cThree Sisters\u201d\u2014provided nutritional needs necessary to sustain communities. Peoples of this region managed their forest resources by burning underbrush to create vast park-like hunting grounds and to clear the ground for planting the \u201cThree Sisters.\u201d Many groups\u00a0used shifting cultivation where farmers cut the forest, burned the undergrowth and then planted seeds in the nutrient rich ashes. When crop yields began to decline, farmers would move to another field and allow the land to recover and the forest to regrow before again cutting the forest, burning the undergrowth, and restarting the cycle. This technique was particularly useful in areas with difficult soil. But in the most fertile regions of the Eastern Woodlands, Native American farmers engaged in permanent, intensive agriculture, using hand tools rather than European-style plows.[footnote]Jane Mt. Pleasant, \u201cA New Paradigm for Pre-Columbian Agriculture in North America,\u201d Early American Studies 13, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 374\u2013412, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]\u00a0Many peoples of the Eastern Woodlands lived in smaller dispersed communities in order to take advantage of the rich soils and abundant rivers and streams. The Lenapes, also known as Delawares, farmed the bottom lands throughout the Hudson and Delaware River watersheds in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Their hundreds of settlements stretched from modern-day southern Massachusetts to\u00a0Delaware.\r\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_01_01_Tribes\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"585\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202044\/CNX_History_01_01_Tribes.jpg\" alt=\"A map shows the locations of the Southwest (Pueblo) cultures, the Southeast cultures, and the Eastern Woodland tribes, as well as the ancient city of Cahokia.\" width=\"585\" height=\"663\" \/> This map indicates the locations of the three Pueblo cultures the major Eastern Woodland Indian tribes, and the tribes of the Southeast, as well as the location of the ancient city of Cahokia.[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm53475360\">Women in this region typically cultivated the crops and harvested nuts and berries, while men hunted, fished, and provided protection. But both took responsibility for raising children, and most major societies in the East were matrilineal, meaning they determined descent and inheritance through female relatives. In tribes such as the Iroquois, Lenape, Muscogee, and Cherokee, women had both power and influence. They counseled the chief and passed on the traditions of the tribe. Women's roles often\u00a0changed dramatically with the coming of the Europeans, who introduced, sometimes forcibly, their own patriarchal customs and traditions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2>The Pacific Northwest<\/h2>\r\nIn the Pacific Northwest, the Kwakwaka\u2019wakw, Tlingits, Haidas, and hundreds of other peoples, speaking dozens of languages, thrived due to the moderate climate, lush forests and many rivers. The peoples of this region depended upon salmon for survival and valued it accordingly. Images of salmon decorated totem poles, baskets, canoes, oars, and other tools. The fish was treated with spiritual respect and its image represented prosperity, life, and renewal. Sustainable harvesting practices ensured the survival of salmon populations. Elders closely observed the size of the salmon run and would delay harvesting to ensure that a sufficient number survived to spawn and return in the future.[footnote]19. Erna Gunther, \u201cAn Analysis of the First Salmon Ceremony, American Anthropologist, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct. \u2013 Dec., 1926), pp. 605-617, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]\u00a0Men commonly used nets, hooks, and other small tools to capture salmon as they migrated upriver to spawn. Massive cedar canoes, as long as 50 feet and carrying as many as 20 men, also enabled extensive fishing expeditions in the Pacific Ocean, where skilled fishermen caught halibut, sturgeon, and other fish, sometimes hauling thousands of pounds in a single canoe<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">.[footnote]20. Gary E. Moulton, ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Volume 6 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). Available online through the Library of Congress at https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/exhibits\/lewisandclark\/transcript68.html, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]<\/span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1964\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19155957\/Crooked-Beak-of-Heaven-Mask.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-1964 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19155957\/Crooked-Beak-of-Heaven-Mask-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a> Intricately carved masks like this Crooked Beak of Heaven Mask used natural elements like animals to represent supernatural forces during ceremonial dances and festivals. This particular mask is from the Kwakwaka\u2019wakw people in British Columbia.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFood surpluses enabled significant population growth, and the Pacific Northwest became one of the most densely populated regions of North America. The combination of population density and food surplus created a unique social organization centered around elaborate feasts, called potlatches. These potlatches celebrated births and weddings as well as determined social status. A party would last for days and the host would demonstrate his wealth and power by feeding and entertaining guests with food, artwork, and performances. The more the host gave away, the more prestige and power they had within the group. Some men saved for decades to host an extravagant potlach that would in turn give them greater respect and power within the community.\r\n\r\nMany peoples of the Pacific Northwest built elaborate plank houses out of the region\u2019s abundant cedar trees. The 500-foot-long Suquamish Oleman House (or Old Man House), for instance, rested on the banks of Puget Sound.<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">[footnote]21. Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, Second Edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 126, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.[\/footnote]<\/span>\u00a0Giant cedar trees were also carved and painted in the shape of animals or other figures to tell stories and express identities. These totem poles became the most recognizable artistic form of the Pacific Northwest. But peoples also carved masks and other wooden items, such as hand drums and rattles, out of the great trees of the region.\r\n<h2>Similarities Amidst Diversity<\/h2>\r\nThe\u00a0New World was marked by diversity and contrast. By the time Europeans were poised to cross the Atlantic, Native Americans spoke hundreds of languages and lived in keeping with the hemisphere\u2019s many climates. Some lived in cities, others in small bands. Some migrated seasonally, others settled permanently. Still,\u00a0North America\u2019s indigenous peoples shared some broad traits. Their spiritual practices, understandings of\u00a0property, and kinship networks differed markedly from European arrangements.\r\n\r\nMost native peoples of North America did not neatly distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. Spiritual power permeated their world and was both tangible and accessible. It could be appealed to and harnessed. Further, kinship bound most Native North American people together. The majority of peoples lived in small communities tied together by kinship networks. In matrilineal Eastern Woodlands communities, where clan identity proceeded along the female line, mothers often wielded enormous influence at local levels and men\u2019s status often depended on their relationships to women. Native American culture meanwhile generally afforded greater sexual and marital freedom than European cultures did. Women often chose their husbands and divorce often was a relatively simple and straightforward process.\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp43801504\">Clashing beliefs about land ownership and use of the environment were, arguably, the greatest area of conflict with European values. Although tribes often claimed the right to certain hunting grounds\u2014usually identified by some geographical landmark\u2014native societies did not practice, or in general even have the concept of, private ownership of land.\u00a0Native Americans generally felt a personal ownership of tools, weapons, or other items that were actively used, and this same rule applied to land and crops. Groups and individuals exploited particular pieces of land, and used violence or negotiation to exclude others. But the right to the use of land did not imply the right to its permanent possession. The European Christian worldview, on the other hand, viewed land as the source of wealth. According to the Christian Bible, God created humanity in his own image with the command to use and subdue the rest of creation, which included not only land, but also all animal life. Upon their arrival in North America, Europeans found no fences, no signs designating ownership. Land, and the game that populated it, they believed, were there for the taking.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-idp32909184\" class=\"summary\">\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">\r\n<h1>Section Summary<\/h1>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp97087520\">The human history of the Americas begins during the last ice age when a land bridge existed between modern-day Siberia and Alaska, opening a pathway for the first inhabitants to migrate from northeastern Asia.\u00a0As the ice age ended and warming temperatures spurred ecological change, peoples developed unique subsistence patterns to harness the resources of their particular regions. Agriculture arose sometime sometime between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago in Mesoamerica, leading to the development of complex urban civilizations in what is today Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula.<\/p>\r\nGreat civilizations rose and fell, too, in North America. Puebloan societies borrowed Mesoamerican farming techniques and built impressive cities in the canyons of the American Southwest. The great city of Cahokia arose at the height of the Mississippian civilization in the East. The Eastern Woodland peoples were thriving, as well, in more dispersed settlements that allowed them to make the best use of their resources. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest became one of the most densely populated regions of North America, owing to abundant food resources.\r\n\r\nBy the time Europeans were poised to cross the Atlantic, the Americas were home to a marked diversity of peoples speaking hundreds of different languages. Despite the great diversity, however, North America\u2019s indigenous cultures shared some broad traits. Their spiritual practices, understandings of\u00a0property, and social customs would put them at odds with Europeans once they arrived in the \"New World.\"\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp93843104\"><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n[embed]\r\nhttps:\/\/assessments.lumenlearning.com\/assessments\/25651\r\n[\/embed]\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-idp53860352\" class=\"review-questions\"><\/section><section class=\"review-questions\">\r\n<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-info\">\r\n<h3>Review Question<\/h3>\r\n<section>\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>What were the major similarities between the native cultures of North America?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/section><\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-info\">\r\n<h3>Answer to Review Question<\/h3>\r\n<section>\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Although their languages, customs, and foodways differed considerably, the native peoples of North America all attached importance to kinship in the organization of their societies. They also saw a close relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds and believed the spiritual world was accessible to human beings. Perhaps the most striking difference between their value systems and that of Europeans was the lack of an equivalent concept of property ownership. Although they recognized the rights of people to use certain land these rights did not imply the right to permanently possess it.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/section><\/div>\r\n<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-success\"><section>\r\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\r\n<div>\r\n<div id=\"fs-idm1454784\">\r\n\r\n<strong>Beringia<\/strong>\u00a0an ancient land bridge linking Asia and North America\r\n\r\n<strong>Mesoamerica<\/strong>\u00a0the geographic area stretching from north of Panama up to the desert of central Mexico, encompassing modern-day Mexico and Central America\r\n\r\n<strong>Paleolithic Era\u00a0<\/strong>the \"Old Stone Age,\" spanning the long era in human history between the advent of stone tool technology and the end of the last ice age, before the advent of agriculture\r\n\r\n<strong>Pueblo<\/strong> the name given to peoples of the American Southwest by the Spanish, referring to their towns and villages of permanent stone and mud buildings\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div id=\"fs-idp16965888\">\r\n\r\n<strong style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\"><strong>matrilineal\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\">tracing descent and determining inheritance through female kin<\/span>\r\n<div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<strong>potlatches\u00a0<\/strong>elaborate community feasts that contributed to one's social status among the peoples of the Pacific Northwest\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section><\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-highlight\">\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<p>By the end of this section, you will be able to:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"im_orderedlist\">\n<li>Explain the significance of the last ice age to the peopling and early history of the Americas<\/li>\n<li>Discuss examples of the achievements of American civilizations before the arrival of the Spanish<\/li>\n<li>Discuss the differences and similarities found among the foodways, lifestyles, customs, and beliefs of the Native peoples of North America<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_01_01_Timeline\" class=\"timeline\"><\/figure>\n<p>Native peoples had lived in the Americas for well over ten thousand years by the time Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492. Spread across a variety of ecosystems from Canada to South America, they spoke hundreds of different languages. Their societies ranged from small agricultural villages and hunting camps to large urban centers. Although estimates vary widely, it is likely that at least 60 million individuals lived in all of the Americas by the time Columbus \u201cdiscovered\u201d the hemisphere. American history rightfully begins with them, not European explorers. But where do their stories start?<\/p>\n<h1>ICE AGE BEGINNINGS<\/h1>\n<section id=\"fs-idm48030480\">Native Americans passed stories down through the millennia that tell of their creation and reveal the contours of their ancestors&#8217; beliefs. The Salinan people of present-day California, for example, tell of a bald eagle that formed the first man out of clay and the first woman out of a feather.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"A. L. Kroeber, ed., University of California Publications: American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 10 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1911\u20131914), 191\u2013192, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-1\" href=\"#footnote-1914-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0According to a Lenape tradition, the earth was made when Sky Woman fell into a watery world and, with the help of muskrat and beaver, landed safely on a turtle\u2019s back, thus creating Turtle Island, or North America. A Choctaw tradition locates southeastern peoples\u2019 beginnings inside the great Mother Mound earthwork, Nunih Waya, in the lower Mississippi Valley.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"James F. Barnett Jr., Mississippi\u2019s American Indians (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 90, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-2\" href=\"#footnote-1914-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Nahua people trace their beginnings to the place of the Seven Caves, from which their ancestors emerged before they migrated to what is now Central Mexico.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Edward W. Osowski, Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 25, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-3\" href=\"#footnote-1914-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0America\u2019s indigenous peoples have passed down many accounts of their origins, written and oral, which share creation and migration histories.<\/section>\n<section>\u00a0<\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section>\n<div id=\"attachment_1881\" style=\"width: 455px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2015\/08\/02204957\/Map_of_gene_flow_in_and_out_of_Beringia.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1881\" class=\"wp-image-1881\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2015\/08\/02204957\/Map_of_gene_flow_in_and_out_of_Beringia.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"445\" height=\"556\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1881\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map depicts migration patterns across the Bering land bridge that once connected northeast Asia to modern-day Alaska. It traces the possible movements of people beginning about 25,000 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Archaeologists and anthropologists, meanwhile, focus on migration histories. Studying artifacts, bones, and genetic signatures, these scholars have pieced together a narrative suggesting that the Americas were once a \u201cnew world\u201d for Native Americans as well.The last global ice age trapped much of the world\u2019s water in enormous continental glaciers. Twenty thousand years ago, ice sheets, some a mile thick, extended across North America as far south as modern-day Illinois. With so much of the world\u2019s water captured in these massive ice sheets, global sea levels were much lower, and a land bridge connected Asia and North America across the Bering Strait. Between twelve and twenty thousand years ago\u2014during what is called the Paleolithic Era\u2014 Native ancestors crossed the ice, waters, and exposed lands between the continents of Asia and America. These mobile\u00a0hunter-gatherers traveled in small bands,\u00a0exploiting vegetable, animal, and marine resources\u00a0into the Beringian tundra at the northwestern edge of North America. DNA evidence suggests that these\u00a0ancestors paused for perhaps 15,000 years in the expansive region between Asia and America.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"David J. Meltzer, First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 170, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-4\" href=\"#footnote-1914-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a> Other ancestors crossed the seas and voyaged\u00a0along the Pacific coast, traveling along riverways and settling where local ecosystems permitted.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Knut R. Fladmark, \u201cRoutes: Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America,\u201d American Antiquity 44, no. 1 (1979): 55\u201369, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-5\" href=\"#footnote-1914-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><\/section>\n<section><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\">The glacial sheets began to recede around fourteen thousand years ago. Their gradual melting opened a corridor to warmer climates and new resources. Some ancestral communities migrated south and eastward. Evidence\u00a0found at Monte Verde, a site in modern-day Chile, suggests human activity began there at least 14,500 years ago. Similar evidence hints at human settlement in the Florida panhandle at the same time.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jessi J. Halligan et al., \u201cPre-Clovis Occupation 14,550 Years Ago at the Page-Ladson Site, Florida, and the People of the Americas,\u201d Science Advances 2, no. 5 (May 13, 2016), as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-6\" href=\"#footnote-1914-6\" aria-label=\"Footnote 6\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[6]<\/sup><\/a> On many points, archaeological and traditional knowledge sources converge: the dental, archaeological, linguistic, oral, ecological and genetic evidence illustrates a great deal of diversity, with numerous different groups settling and migrating over thousands of years, potentially from many different points of origin.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Tom D. Dillehay, The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory (New York: Basic Books, 2000), as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-7\" href=\"#footnote-1914-7\" aria-label=\"Footnote 7\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[7]<\/sup><\/a> Whether emerging from the earth, water, or sky, being made by a creator, or migrating to their homelands, modern Native American communities recount histories in America that date long before human memory.<\/span><\/section>\n<p>As the ice age ended and warming temperatures spurred ecological change, Native peoples developed unique subsistence patterns to harness the resources of their particular regions. In the Pacific Northwest, Native groups exploited the great salmon-filled rivers. On the plains and prairie lands, hunting communities followed large game animals such as the bison and moved according to seasonal patterns. In mountains, prairies, deserts, and forests, the cultures and ways of life of paleo-era ancestors were as varied as the geography. These groups spoke hundreds of languages and adopted distinct cultural practices. Rich and diverse diets fueled massive population growth across the continent.<\/p>\n<p>Agriculture arose sometime between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago, almost simultaneously in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Peoples living in Mesoamerica (the geographic area stretching from north of Panama up to the desert of central Mexico) relied upon domesticated maize (corn) to develop the hemisphere\u2019s first settled population by 1,200 BCE.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America\u2019s First Civilization (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 25, a stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-8\" href=\"#footnote-1914-8\" aria-label=\"Footnote 8\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[8]<\/sup><\/a> Corn was high in caloric content, easily dried and stored, and, in Mesoamerica\u2019s warm and fertile Gulf Coast, could sometimes be harvested twice in a year. The cultivation of corn also spawned the domestication of other crops, including squash and beans.\u00a0For some, agriculture may have accompanied a decline in health. Analysis of remains reveals that societies transitioning to agriculture often experienced weaker bones and teeth.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Richard H. Steckel, \u201cHealth and Nutrition in Pre-Columbian America: The Skeletal Evidence,\u201d Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 19\u201321, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-9\" href=\"#footnote-1914-9\" aria-label=\"Footnote 9\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[9]<\/sup><\/a> But despite these possible declines, agriculture brought important benefits. Farmers could produce more food than hunters, enabling some members of the community to pursue other skills. Religious leaders, skilled soldiers, and artists could devote their energy to activities other than food production.<\/p>\n<h1>EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF MESOAMERICA<\/h1>\n<p id=\"fs-idm31997616\">Agriculture ultimately aided the rise of a series of complex civilizations in Mesoamerica. Although marked by great topographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity, these early civilizations shared a number of characteristics. Mesoamericans were <span class=\"no-emphasis\">polytheistic<\/span>; their gods possessed both male and female traits and demanded blood sacrifices of enemies taken in battle or ritual bloodletting. Corn, or maize, domesticated by 5000 BCE, formed the basis of their diet. They developed a mathematical system, built huge edifices, and devised a calendar that accurately predicted eclipses and solstices and that priest-astronomers used to direct the planting and harvesting of crops. Most important for our knowledge of these peoples, they created the only known writing system in the Western Hemisphere; researchers have made much progress in interpreting the inscriptions on their temples and pyramids. Trade over long distances helped diffuse culture. Weapons made of obsidian, jewelry crafted from jade, feathers woven into clothing and ornaments, and cacao beans that were whipped into a chocolate drink formed the basis of commerce.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;mother&#8221; of Mesoamerican civilizations was that of the Olmec. Flourishing along the hot Gulf Coast of Mexico from about 1200 to about 400 BCE, the Olmec produced a number of major works of art, architecture, pottery, and sculpture. Most recognizable are their giant head sculptures\u00a0and the pyramid in La Venta. They built impressive aqueducts to transport water into their cities and irrigate their fields. Irrigation allowed them to grow maize, as well as squash, beans, and tomatoes. They also bred small domesticated dogs which, along with fish, provided their protein.They also developed a system of trade throughout Mesoamerica, giving rise to an elite class.\u00a0Although no one knows what happened to the Olmec after about 400 BCE, in part because the jungle reclaimed many of their cities, their culture was the base upon which later Mesoamerican civilizations built. It was the Olmec who worshipped a rain god, a maize god, and the feathered serpent so important in the future pantheons of the Aztecs (who called him Quetzalcoatl) and the Maya (to whom he was Kukulkan).<\/p>\n<section id=\"fs-idp120873104\">\n<div style=\"width: 464px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202034\/CNX_History_01_01_Americas.jpg\" alt=\"A map shows the locations of the Olmec, Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations, in, respectively, present-day Mexico; present-day Mexico; present-day Mexico (on the Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula),Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala; and present-day Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.\" width=\"454\" height=\"521\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map shows the extent of the major civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. In South America, early civilizations developed along the coast because the high Andes and the inhospitable Amazon Basin made the interior of the continent less favorable for settlement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-idp71404736\">After the decline of the Olmec, a city rose in the fertile central highlands of Mesoamerica. One of the largest population centers in pre-Columbian America and home to more than 100,000 people at its height in about 500 CE, Teotihuacan was located about thirty miles northeast of modern Mexico City. Large-scale agriculture and the resultant abundance of food allowed time for people to develop special trades and skills other than farming. Builders constructed over twenty-two hundred apartment compounds for multiple families, as well as more than a hundred temples. Among these were the Pyramid of the Sun (which is two hundred feet high) and the Pyramid of the Moon (one hundred and fifty feet high). The city was also the center for trade, which extended to settlements on Mesoamerica\u2019s Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp120907584\">Mayan culture had strong ties to Teotihuacan. At its height from roughly 200 CE to 900 CE, Mayan civilization encompassed some fifty urban centers in what is now Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala.\u00a0The Maya\u2019s architectural and mathematical contributions were especially significant. Mayan elites perfected the calendar and written language the Olmec had begun. They devised a written mathematical system to record crop yields and the size of the population, and to assist in trade. They built the city-states of Copan, Tikal, and Chichen Itza along their major trade routes. Within these urban centers stood impressive temples, pyramids, statues of gods, and astronomical observatories. But, for reasons still debated by scholars, Mayan civilization declined by about 900 CE, leaving their large population centers abandoned. Poor soil was likely a contributing factor, along with the exhaustion of resources and a drought that lasted nearly two centuries.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp97753424\">The Spanish found little organized resistance among Mayan descendants when they arrived in the 1520s. However, they did find Mayan history, in the form of glyphs, or pictures representing words, recorded in folding books called codices (the singular is <em>codex<\/em>). In 1562, Bishop Diego de Landa, who feared the converted natives had reverted to their traditional religious practices, collected and burned every codex he could find. Today only a few survive.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_01_01_Chichen\">\n<div style=\"width: 473px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202037\/CNX_History_01_01_Chichen.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows El Castillo, a stepped pyramid with a set of wide stone steps running up the front and a square structure with an entryway on top.\" width=\"463\" height=\"347\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">El Castillo, located at Chichen Itza in the eastern Yucat\u00e1n peninsula, served as a temple for the god Kukulkan. Each side contains ninety-one steps to the top. When counting the top platform, the total number of stairs is three hundred and sixty-five, the number of days in a year. (credit: Ken Thomas)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-idm73887824\">\n<div id=\"fs-idm50516160\" class=\"history my-story\">\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #1d1d1d;font-size: 1.5em;font-weight: bold\">EARLY PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-idm91929888\">\n<p id=\"fs-idm45461312\">Native peoples of North America generally developed more dispersed societies than the urban civilizations of Mesoamerica. But largescale population centers developed here, too. Some of the largest culture groups in North America were the Puebloan groups, centered in the Greater Southwest (the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico) and groups living along the great river valleys of the East. Extensive trade networks connected peoples across vast distances. Some of these networks linked the peoples of Mesoamerica with peoples in the southern part of today&#8217;s United States, leading to cultural exchange as well as the exchange of goods.<\/p>\n<h2>The Greater Southwest<\/h2>\n<p>In the American Southwest Mesoamerican farming techniques supported a series of societies collectively known as the Pueblo. The Spanish first gave them this name, which means \u201ctown\u201d or \u201cvillage,\u201d because they lived in towns or villages of permanent stone-and-mud buildings with thatched roofs. Like present-day apartment houses, these buildings had multiple stories, each with multiple rooms.\u00a0The three main groups of the Pueblo people were the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi. The Mogollon thrived in the Mimbres Valley (New Mexico) from about 150 BCE to 1450 CE. They developed a distinctive artistic style for painting bowls with finely drawn geometric figures and wildlife, especially birds, in black on a white background. Beginning about 600 CE, the Hohokam built an extensive irrigation system of canals to irrigate the desert and grow fields of corn, beans, and squash. By 1300, their crop yields were supporting the most highly populated settlements in the southwest. The Hohokam decorated pottery with a red-on-buff design and made jewelry of turquoise. In the high desert of New Mexico, the Anasazi, whose name means \u201cancient enemy\u201d or \u201cancient ones,\u201d carved homes from steep cliffs accessed by ladders or ropes that could be pulled in at night or in case of enemy attack.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 397px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202043\/CNX_History_01_01_Anasazi.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph of Anasazi cliff dwellings shows blocky adobe structures with window and door openings, some of which are set atop a high, sheer cliff.\" width=\"387\" height=\"258\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">To access their homes, the cliff-dwelling Anasazi used ropes or ladders that could be pulled in at night for safety. These pueblos may be viewed today in Canyon de Chelly National Monument (above) in Arizona and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\">Roads extending some 180 miles connected the Pueblos\u2019 smaller urban centers to each other and to Chaco Canyon, which by 1050 CE had become the administrative, religious, and cultural center of their civilization.\u00a0As many as 15,000 people lived in the Chaco Canyon complex in present-day New Mexico<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Stuart J. Fiedel, Prehistory of the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 217, as stated in The American Yawp, Chapter 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-10\" href=\"#footnote-1914-10\" aria-label=\"Footnote 10\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[10]<\/sup><\/a> O<\/span>ne single building, Pueblo Bonito, stretched over two acres and rose five stories. Its 600 rooms were decorated with copper bells, turquoise decorations, and bright macaws.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"H. Wolcott Toll, \u201cMaking and Breaking Pots in the Chaco World,\u201d American Antiquity 66, no. 1 (January 2001): 65, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-11\" href=\"#footnote-1914-11\" aria-label=\"Footnote 11\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[11]<\/sup><\/a><span style=\"background-color: #ffffff;color: #000000\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>But as their population base grew, the peoples of Chaco Canyon faced several ecological challenges. Deforestation and over-irrigation ultimately caused the communities to collapse and residents dispersed to smaller settlements. An extreme fifty-year drought began in 1130. Shortly thereafter, Chaco Canyon was deserted. New\u00a0groups filled this land, including the\u00a0Apache and Navajo, both of whom adopted several Puebloan customs.<\/p>\n<h2>The Mississippi Valley<\/h2>\n<p>The same drought that plagued the Pueblo also likely affected the Mississippian peoples of the American Midwest and South. The Mississippians developed one of the largest civilizations north of modern-day Mexico. Roughly one thousand years ago, the largest Mississippian settlement, now called Cahokia, peaked at a population of between 10,000 and 30,000. Located just east of modern-day St. Louis, Cahokia rivaled contemporary European cities in size. No American city, in fact, would match its peak population levels until after the American Revolution. The city itself spanned five square miles and centered around a large earthen hill that rose ten stories and was larger at its base than the great pyramids of Egypt. The city also contained 120 earthen mounds or pyramids, each dominating a particular neighborhood and on each of which lived a leader who exercised authority over the surrounding area. As in other early cultures, life and death in Cahokia were linked to the movement of the stars, sun, and moon, and their ceremonial earthwork structures reflect these important structuring forces.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1963\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19153717\/Cahokia_1-e1469982797624.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1963\" class=\"wp-image-1963 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19153717\/Cahokia_1-e1469982797624.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1963\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s rendering of Cahokia as it may have appeared in 1150 CE. Prepared by Bill Isminger and Mark Esarey with artwork by Greg Harlin for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Around the year 1050, Cahokia experienced what one archaeologist has called a \u201cbig bang,\u201d which included \u201ca virtually instantaneous and pervasive shift in all things political, social, and ideological.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"14. Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, eds., Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 31, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-12\" href=\"#footnote-1914-12\" aria-label=\"Footnote 12\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[12]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0The population grew almost 500 percent in only one generation, and new groups were absorbed into the city and its supporting communities.<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Thomas E. Emerson, \u201cAn Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,\u201d Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 137\u2013139, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-13\" href=\"#footnote-1914-13\" aria-label=\"Footnote 13\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0By 1300, the once powerful city had undergone a series of strains that led to collapse. Scholars previously pointed to ecological disaster or slow depopulation through emigration, but new research instead emphasizes\u00a0mounting warfare, or internal political tensions. Environmental explanations suggest that population growth placed too great a burden on the arable land. Others suggest the demand for fuel and building materials led to deforestation, erosion, and an extended drought. Recent evidence, including defensive stockades, suggests that political turmoil among the ruling elite and threats from external enemies may explain the end of the once great civilization.<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"16. Thomas E. Emerson, \u201cAn Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,\u201d Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 27: No. 2 (Fall 2002), pp. 137-139, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-14\" href=\"#footnote-1914-14\" aria-label=\"Footnote 14\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">Explore the grounds of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site as they look today in this <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Tdp2hZG4ky4\">short video<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>Like the cities of Mesoamerica, North American communities were sustained by long distance trading routes. The Mississippi River served as a particularly important trade artery, but all of the continent\u2019s waterways were vital to transportation and communication. Cahokia became a key trading center partly due to its position near the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers. These rivers created networks that stretched from the Great Lakes to the American Southeast. Archaeologists can identify materials, like seashells, that traveled over a thousand miles to reach the center of this civilization. At least 3,500 years ago, the community at what is now Poverty Point, Louisiana, had access to copper from present-day Canada and flint from modern-day Indiana. Sheets of mica found at the Serpent Mound site of the Ohio Valley&#8217;s Hopewell culture came from the Allegheny Mountains, and obsidian from nearby earthworks came from Mexico. Turquoise from the Greater Southwest was used at Teotihuacan in Mexico 1,200 years ago.<\/p>\n<h2>The Eastern Woodlands<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-idp8778560\">Agriculture also flourished in the fertile river valleys between the Mississippi River and Atlantic Ocean, an area known as the Eastern Woodlands. There, three crops in particular\u2014corn, beans, and squash, known as the \u201cThree Sisters\u201d\u2014provided nutritional needs necessary to sustain communities. Peoples of this region managed their forest resources by burning underbrush to create vast park-like hunting grounds and to clear the ground for planting the \u201cThree Sisters.\u201d Many groups\u00a0used shifting cultivation where farmers cut the forest, burned the undergrowth and then planted seeds in the nutrient rich ashes. When crop yields began to decline, farmers would move to another field and allow the land to recover and the forest to regrow before again cutting the forest, burning the undergrowth, and restarting the cycle. This technique was particularly useful in areas with difficult soil. But in the most fertile regions of the Eastern Woodlands, Native American farmers engaged in permanent, intensive agriculture, using hand tools rather than European-style plows.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jane Mt. Pleasant, \u201cA New Paradigm for Pre-Columbian Agriculture in North America,\u201d Early American Studies 13, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 374\u2013412, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-15\" href=\"#footnote-1914-15\" aria-label=\"Footnote 15\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[15]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Many peoples of the Eastern Woodlands lived in smaller dispersed communities in order to take advantage of the rich soils and abundant rivers and streams. The Lenapes, also known as Delawares, farmed the bottom lands throughout the Hudson and Delaware River watersheds in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Their hundreds of settlements stretched from modern-day southern Massachusetts to\u00a0Delaware.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"CNX_History_01_01_Tribes\">\n<div style=\"width: 595px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/883\/2015\/08\/23202044\/CNX_History_01_01_Tribes.jpg\" alt=\"A map shows the locations of the Southwest (Pueblo) cultures, the Southeast cultures, and the Eastern Woodland tribes, as well as the ancient city of Cahokia.\" width=\"585\" height=\"663\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map indicates the locations of the three Pueblo cultures the major Eastern Woodland Indian tribes, and the tribes of the Southeast, as well as the location of the ancient city of Cahokia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p id=\"fs-idm53475360\">Women in this region typically cultivated the crops and harvested nuts and berries, while men hunted, fished, and provided protection. But both took responsibility for raising children, and most major societies in the East were matrilineal, meaning they determined descent and inheritance through female relatives. In tribes such as the Iroquois, Lenape, Muscogee, and Cherokee, women had both power and influence. They counseled the chief and passed on the traditions of the tribe. Women&#8217;s roles often\u00a0changed dramatically with the coming of the Europeans, who introduced, sometimes forcibly, their own patriarchal customs and traditions.<\/p>\n<h2>The Pacific Northwest<\/h2>\n<p>In the Pacific Northwest, the Kwakwaka\u2019wakw, Tlingits, Haidas, and hundreds of other peoples, speaking dozens of languages, thrived due to the moderate climate, lush forests and many rivers. The peoples of this region depended upon salmon for survival and valued it accordingly. Images of salmon decorated totem poles, baskets, canoes, oars, and other tools. The fish was treated with spiritual respect and its image represented prosperity, life, and renewal. Sustainable harvesting practices ensured the survival of salmon populations. Elders closely observed the size of the salmon run and would delay harvesting to ensure that a sufficient number survived to spawn and return in the future.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"19. Erna Gunther, \u201cAn Analysis of the First Salmon Ceremony, American Anthropologist, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct. \u2013 Dec., 1926), pp. 605-617, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-16\" href=\"#footnote-1914-16\" aria-label=\"Footnote 16\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[16]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Men commonly used nets, hooks, and other small tools to capture salmon as they migrated upriver to spawn. Massive cedar canoes, as long as 50 feet and carrying as many as 20 men, also enabled extensive fishing expeditions in the Pacific Ocean, where skilled fishermen caught halibut, sturgeon, and other fish, sometimes hauling thousands of pounds in a single canoe<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\">.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"20. Gary E. Moulton, ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Volume 6 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). Available online through the Library of Congress at https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/exhibits\/lewisandclark\/transcript68.html, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-17\" href=\"#footnote-1914-17\" aria-label=\"Footnote 17\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[17]<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1964\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19155957\/Crooked-Beak-of-Heaven-Mask.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1964\" class=\"wp-image-1964 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4675\/2019\/08\/19155957\/Crooked-Beak-of-Heaven-Mask-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1964\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Intricately carved masks like this Crooked Beak of Heaven Mask used natural elements like animals to represent supernatural forces during ceremonial dances and festivals. This particular mask is from the Kwakwaka\u2019wakw people in British Columbia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Food surpluses enabled significant population growth, and the Pacific Northwest became one of the most densely populated regions of North America. The combination of population density and food surplus created a unique social organization centered around elaborate feasts, called potlatches. These potlatches celebrated births and weddings as well as determined social status. A party would last for days and the host would demonstrate his wealth and power by feeding and entertaining guests with food, artwork, and performances. The more the host gave away, the more prestige and power they had within the group. Some men saved for decades to host an extravagant potlach that would in turn give them greater respect and power within the community.<\/p>\n<p>Many peoples of the Pacific Northwest built elaborate plank houses out of the region\u2019s abundant cedar trees. The 500-foot-long Suquamish Oleman House (or Old Man House), for instance, rested on the banks of Puget Sound.<span style=\"background-color: #ffffff\"><a class=\"footnote\" title=\"21. Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, Second Edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 126, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-1914-18\" href=\"#footnote-1914-18\" aria-label=\"Footnote 18\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[18]<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Giant cedar trees were also carved and painted in the shape of animals or other figures to tell stories and express identities. These totem poles became the most recognizable artistic form of the Pacific Northwest. But peoples also carved masks and other wooden items, such as hand drums and rattles, out of the great trees of the region.<\/p>\n<h2>Similarities Amidst Diversity<\/h2>\n<p>The\u00a0New World was marked by diversity and contrast. By the time Europeans were poised to cross the Atlantic, Native Americans spoke hundreds of languages and lived in keeping with the hemisphere\u2019s many climates. Some lived in cities, others in small bands. Some migrated seasonally, others settled permanently. Still,\u00a0North America\u2019s indigenous peoples shared some broad traits. Their spiritual practices, understandings of\u00a0property, and kinship networks differed markedly from European arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>Most native peoples of North America did not neatly distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. Spiritual power permeated their world and was both tangible and accessible. It could be appealed to and harnessed. Further, kinship bound most Native North American people together. The majority of peoples lived in small communities tied together by kinship networks. In matrilineal Eastern Woodlands communities, where clan identity proceeded along the female line, mothers often wielded enormous influence at local levels and men\u2019s status often depended on their relationships to women. Native American culture meanwhile generally afforded greater sexual and marital freedom than European cultures did. Women often chose their husbands and divorce often was a relatively simple and straightforward process.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp43801504\">Clashing beliefs about land ownership and use of the environment were, arguably, the greatest area of conflict with European values. Although tribes often claimed the right to certain hunting grounds\u2014usually identified by some geographical landmark\u2014native societies did not practice, or in general even have the concept of, private ownership of land.\u00a0Native Americans generally felt a personal ownership of tools, weapons, or other items that were actively used, and this same rule applied to land and crops. Groups and individuals exploited particular pieces of land, and used violence or negotiation to exclude others. But the right to the use of land did not imply the right to its permanent possession. The European Christian worldview, on the other hand, viewed land as the source of wealth. According to the Christian Bible, God created humanity in his own image with the command to use and subdue the rest of creation, which included not only land, but also all animal life. Upon their arrival in North America, Europeans found no fences, no signs designating ownership. Land, and the game that populated it, they believed, were there for the taking.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-idp32909184\" class=\"summary\">\n<div class=\"textbox\">\n<h1>Section Summary<\/h1>\n<p id=\"fs-idp97087520\">The human history of the Americas begins during the last ice age when a land bridge existed between modern-day Siberia and Alaska, opening a pathway for the first inhabitants to migrate from northeastern Asia.\u00a0As the ice age ended and warming temperatures spurred ecological change, peoples developed unique subsistence patterns to harness the resources of their particular regions. Agriculture arose sometime sometime between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago in Mesoamerica, leading to the development of complex urban civilizations in what is today Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>Great civilizations rose and fell, too, in North America. Puebloan societies borrowed Mesoamerican farming techniques and built impressive cities in the canyons of the American Southwest. The great city of Cahokia arose at the height of the Mississippian civilization in the East. The Eastern Woodland peoples were thriving, as well, in more dispersed settlements that allowed them to make the best use of their resources. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest became one of the most densely populated regions of North America, owing to abundant food resources.<\/p>\n<p>By the time Europeans were poised to cross the Atlantic, the Americas were home to a marked diversity of peoples speaking hundreds of different languages. Despite the great diversity, however, North America\u2019s indigenous cultures shared some broad traits. Their spiritual practices, understandings of\u00a0property, and social customs would put them at odds with Europeans once they arrived in the &#8220;New World.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-idp93843104\">\n<\/div>\n<p>\t<iframe id=\"lumen_assessment_25651\" class=\"resizable\" src=\"https:\/\/assessments.lumenlearning.com\/assessments\/load?assessment_id=25651&#38;embed=1&#38;external_user_id=&#38;external_context_id=&#38;iframe_resize_id=lumen_assessment_25651\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:400px;\"><br \/>\n\t<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-idp53860352\" class=\"review-questions\"><\/section>\n<section class=\"review-questions\">\n<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-info\">\n<h3>Review Question<\/h3>\n<section>\n<ol>\n<li>What were the major similarities between the native cultures of North America?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-info\">\n<h3>Answer to Review Question<\/h3>\n<section>\n<ol>\n<li>Although their languages, customs, and foodways differed considerably, the native peoples of North America all attached importance to kinship in the organization of their societies. They also saw a close relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds and believed the spiritual world was accessible to human beings. Perhaps the most striking difference between their value systems and that of Europeans was the lack of an equivalent concept of property ownership. Although they recognized the rights of people to use certain land these rights did not imply the right to permanently possess it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"bcc-box bcc-success\">\n<section>\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\n<div>\n<div id=\"fs-idm1454784\">\n<p><strong>Beringia<\/strong>\u00a0an ancient land bridge linking Asia and North America<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mesoamerica<\/strong>\u00a0the geographic area stretching from north of Panama up to the desert of central Mexico, encompassing modern-day Mexico and Central America<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paleolithic Era\u00a0<\/strong>the &#8220;Old Stone Age,&#8221; spanning the long era in human history between the advent of stone tool technology and the end of the last ice age, before the advent of agriculture<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pueblo<\/strong> the name given to peoples of the American Southwest by the Spanish, referring to their towns and villages of permanent stone and mud buildings<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"fs-idp16965888\">\n<p><strong style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\"><strong>matrilineal\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;text-align: initial\">tracing descent and determining inheritance through female kin<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>potlatches\u00a0<\/strong>elaborate community feasts that contributed to one&#8217;s social status among the peoples of the Pacific Northwest<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-1914\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>US History. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: P. Scott Corbett, Volker  Janssen, John M. Lund,  Todd Pfannestiel, Paul Vickery, and Sylvie Waskiewicz. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: OpenStax College. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history\">http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/pdm\">Public Domain: No Known Copyright<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>The American Yawp. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\">http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section><hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-1914-1\">A. L. Kroeber, ed., University of California Publications: American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 10 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1911\u20131914), 191\u2013192, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.  <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-2\">James F. Barnett Jr., Mississippi\u2019s American Indians (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 90, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-3\">Edward W. Osowski, Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 25, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-4\">David J. Meltzer, First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 170, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com.  <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-5\">Knut R. Fladmark, \u201cRoutes: Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America,\u201d American Antiquity 44, no. 1 (1979): 55\u201369, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-6\">Jessi J. Halligan et al., \u201cPre-Clovis Occupation 14,550 Years Ago at the Page-Ladson Site, Florida, and the People of the Americas,\u201d Science Advances 2, no. 5 (May 13, 2016), as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-6\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 6\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-7\">Tom D. Dillehay, The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory (New York: Basic Books, 2000), as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-7\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 7\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-8\">Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America\u2019s First Civilization (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 25, a stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-8\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 8\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-9\">Richard H. Steckel, \u201cHealth and Nutrition in Pre-Columbian America: The Skeletal Evidence,\u201d Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 19\u201321, as stated in The American Yawp, www.americanyawp.com. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-9\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 9\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-10\">Stuart J. Fiedel, Prehistory of the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 217, as stated in The American Yawp, Chapter 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-10\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 10\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-11\">H. Wolcott Toll, \u201cMaking and Breaking Pots in the Chaco World,\u201d American Antiquity 66, no. 1 (January 2001): 65, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-11\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 11\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-12\">14. Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, eds., Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 31, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1 <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-12\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 12\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-13\">Thomas E. Emerson, \u201cAn Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,\u201d Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 137\u2013139, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-13\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 13\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-14\">16. Thomas E. Emerson, \u201cAn Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,\u201d Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 27: No. 2 (Fall 2002), pp. 137-139, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-14\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 14\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-15\">Jane Mt. Pleasant, \u201cA New Paradigm for Pre-Columbian Agriculture in North America,\u201d Early American Studies 13, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 374\u2013412, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-15\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 15\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-16\">19. Erna Gunther, \u201cAn Analysis of the First Salmon Ceremony, American Anthropologist, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct. \u2013 Dec., 1926), pp. 605-617, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-16\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 16\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-17\">20. Gary E. Moulton, ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Volume 6 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). Available online through the Library of Congress at https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/exhibits\/lewisandclark\/transcript68.html, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-17\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 17\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1914-18\">21. Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, Second Edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 126, as stated in The American Yawp, Ch. 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1914-18\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 18\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":146219,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"US History\",\"author\":\"P. Scott Corbett, Volker  Janssen, John M. 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