DISCOVERYDay 2

Native Americans in the New World

American History 1Mr. Hensley

SRMHS

Before the Humans Came

• Both North and South America contained megafauna ( types of very large animals)

• Wooly mammoths, giant armadillos, giant wolves, etc.

• All are gone by 10,000 BCE – why?

• Humans, climate or both?

How Did They Get Here?• The land bridge theory

says people move from Asia into Alaska about 13,000 BCE, spread south

• Problem: proof of humans in South America at same time

• Solution: coastal migration theory says people landed at multiple spots on both continents and spread inland

What Were They Like?• Did Native Americans

share a common culture?• No private property• No central government• Belief that everything

contained a spirit• Equality of women• True for most Native

Americans… but not all• True for most hunter-

gatherer cultures

Native Agriculture• Native American

agriculture was based on corn (maize)

• Other domesticated plants included squash and beans

• These are known as the Three Sisters and were complementary and often planted together

No Domesticated Animals?

• Contrary to what you may think – Native Americans did not have horses before contact

• Successful Native domestications were dogs, turkeys and (only in South America) llamas

• North-south axis is to blame, plus extinction of megafauna

Native Technology and Science• Some tribes had writing

and calendars and astronomy and math

• Tools were stone or wood – no metal

• The wheel was known but only used as a toy

• Many Native American cultures had cities and large buildings

North American Natives• Southwestern tribes lived

in adobe (dried mud) buildings and had large irrigation systems

• Great Plains tribes were nomads, following buffalo

• The Mound-Builders along the Mississippi had big cities and farms

• Southeastern tribes lived in smaller villages and both hunted and farmed

Artists conception of Mound Builder city

North American Tribes

Central American Natives

• In central Mexico, the Aztecs ruled

• Their capital, Tenochtitlan, had a population of 300,000

• The Mayans ruled the Yucatan peninsula and had several large cities

• Both these cultures were advanced and urban

Aztecs and Mayans

South American Natives• The Incas controlled most

of the west coast of South America

• They had large cities, advanced farming based on potatoes and had domesticated the llama

• Incas used knots on strings to communicate information – a language based on numbers

Ruins of Incan Temples at Machu Picchu

Population Before First Contact?

• Method is to work backward from a reliable survey and assume a 95% mortality rate from epidemics

• 10 million in North• 25 million in Central• 15 million in South• Problems?

Review: Native Americans Before Contact

BIG QUESTION: When did the first people arrive in the Americas, how did they get here and what do we know

about their unique cultures and civilizations?

The first humans in the New World got here at least 15,000 years ago and while some did cross from Asia to Alaska on a land bridge, more came by boats and settled simultaneous points all up and down the

western coasts of the Americas. Native Americans had fewer domesticated plants than Europeans and

hardly any domesticated animals, because of geographical disadvantages. Native Americans did not have iron or steel, nor did

they know about gunpowder. But they had multiple advanced cultures that featured very large cities, astronomy, mathematics and various

forms of writing.