Pre-Columbian Era
This map shows the approximate location of the ice-free corridor and specific Paleoindian sites (
Clovis theory).
It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first
settled the Americas and the present-day United States. The prevailing theory proposes that people migrated from
Eurasia across
Beringia, a
land bridge that connected
Siberia to present-day
Alaska during the
Ice Age, and then spread southward throughout the Americas and possibly going as far south as the
Antarctic peninsula. This migration may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago
[14]
and continued through to about 10,000+ years ago, when the land bridge
became submerged by the rising sea level caused by the ending of the
last glacial period.
[15] These early inhabitants, called
Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all
period subdivisions in the
history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the
American continents, spanning the time of the
original settlement in the
Upper Paleolithic period to
European colonization during the
Early Modern period. While technically referring to the era before
Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of
American indigenous cultures
until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans,
even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus' initial
landing.
Native development prior to European contact
Native American cultures are not normally included in characterizations of advanced stone age cultures as "
Neolithic," which is a category that more often includes only the cultures in Eurasia, Africa, and other regions. The
archaeological periods used are the classifications of archaeological periods and cultures established in
Gordon Willey and
Philip Phillips' 1958 book
Method and Theory in American Archaeology. They divided the archaeological record in the Americas into five phases;
[16] see
Archaeology of the Americas.
The
Clovis culture, a
megafauna hunting culture, is primarily identified by use of fluted
spear points. Artifacts from this culture were first excavated in 1932 near
Clovis, New Mexico.
The Clovis culture ranged over much of North America and also appeared
in South America. The culture is identified by the distinctive
Clovis point,
a flaked flint spear-point with a notched flute, by which it was
inserted into a shaft. Dating of Clovis materials has been by
association with animal bones and by the use of
carbon dating
methods. Recent reexaminations of Clovis materials using improved
carbon-dating methods produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon
years
B.P. (roughly 9100 to 8850 BCE).
Numerous
Paleoindian cultures occupied North America, with some arrayed around the
Great Plains and
Great Lakes of the modern
United States and
Canada,
as well as adjacent areas to the West and Southwest. According to the
oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they
have been living on this continent since their genesis, described by a
wide range of traditional
creation stories. Other tribes have stories that recount migrations across long tracts of land and a great river, believed to be the
Mississippi River.
[17]
Genetic and linguistic data connect the indigenous people of this
continent with ancient northeast Asians. Archeological and linguistic
data has enabled scholars to discover some of the migrations within the
Americas.
The
Folsom Tradition was characterized by use of
Folsom points as projectile tips, and activities known from kill sites, where slaughter and butchering of
bison took place. Folsom tools were left behind between 9000 BCE and 8000 BCE.
[18]
Na-Dené-speaking peoples entered North America starting around 8000 BCE, reaching the
Pacific Northwest by 5000 BCE,
[19] and from there migrating along the
Pacific Coast
and into the interior. Linguists, anthropologists and archeologists
believe their ancestors comprised a separate migration into North
America, later than the first Paleo-Indians. They migrated into Alaska
and northern Canada, south along the Pacific Coast, into the interior of
Canada, and south to the Great Plains and the American Southwest.
They were the earliest ancestors of the
Athabascan- speaking peoples, including the present-day and historical
Navajo and
Apache.
They constructed large multi-family dwellings in their villages, which
were used seasonally. People did not live there year-round, but for the
summer to hunt and fish, and to gather food supplies for the winter.
[20] The
Oshara Tradition people lived from 5500 BCE to 600 CE. They were part of the
Southwestern Archaic Tradition centered in north-central
New Mexico, the
San Juan Basin, the
Rio Grande Valley, southern
Colorado, and southeastern
Utah.
Since the 1990s, archeologists have explored and dated eleven Middle
Archaic sites in present-day Louisiana and Florida at which early cultures built complexes with multiple
earthwork mounds;
they were societies of hunter-gatherers rather than the settled
agriculturalists believed necessary according to the theory of
Neolithic Revolution to sustain such large villages over long periods. The prime example is
Watson Brake
in northern Louisiana, whose 11-mound complex is dated to 3500 BCE,
making it the oldest, dated site in the Americas for such complex
construction. It is nearly 2,000 years older than the
Poverty Point
site. Construction of the mounds went on for 500 years until was
abandoned about 2800 BCE, probably due to changing environmental
conditions.
[21]
Poverty Point culture is a Late Archaic
archaeological culture
that inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding
Gulf Coast. The culture thrived from 2200 BCE to 700 BCE, during the
Late Archaic period.
[22] Evidence of this culture has been found at more than 100 sites, from the major complex at
Poverty Point, Louisiana (a
UNESCO World Heritage Site) across a 100-mile (160 km) range to the
Jaketown Site near
Belzoni, Mississippi.
Poverty Point is a 1 square mile (2.6 km
2) complex of six
major earthwork concentric rings, with additional platform mounds at the
site. Artifacts show the people traded with other Native Americans
located from Georgia to the Great Lakes region. This is one among
numerous mound sites of complex indigenous cultures throughout the
Mississippi and Ohio valleys. They were one of several succeeding
cultures often referred to as
mound builders.
The
Woodland period of
North American pre-Columbian
cultures refers to the time period from roughly 1000 BCE to 1,000 CE in
the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland" was coined in
the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites dated between the
Archaic period and the
Mississippian cultures. The
Hopewell tradition
is the term for the common aspects of the Native American culture that
flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern
United States from 200 BCE to 500 CE.
[23]
The
indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
were of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive
cultural and political identities, but they shared certain beliefs,
traditions and practices, such as the centrality of
salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol. Their gift-giving feast,
potlatch,
is a highly complex event where people gather in order to commemorate a
special events. These events, such as, the raising of a
Totem pole
or the appointment or election of a new chief. The most famous artistic
feature of the culture is the Totem pole, with carvings of animals and
other characters to commemorate cultural beliefs, legends, and notable
events.
The Hopewell tradition was not a single
culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations, who were connected by a common network of trade routes,
[24] known as the Hopewell Exchange System. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the Southeastern
United States into the southeastern
Canadian shores of
Lake Ontario.
Within this area, societies participated in a high degree of exchange;
most activity was conducted along the waterways that served as their
major transportation routes. The Hopewell exchange system traded
materials from all over the United States.
