chapter 1 a continent of villages to 1500 chapter 1 a continent of villages to 1500 © 2009 pearson...

Chapter 1A Continent of Villages

to 1500

Chapter 1A Continent of Villages

to 1500

© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

OUT OF MANY

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Part One:

Introduction

2© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.

A Continent of Villages

What does the chapter title suggest about North American Indian societies before 1500?


Chapter Focus Questions

How were the Americas first settled?In what ways did native communities adapt to the distinct regions of North America?What were the consequences of the development of farming for native communities?What was the nature of the Indian cultures in the three regions where Europeans first invaded and settled?


Part Two:

American Communities: Cahokia: Thirteenth Century

Life on the Mississippi


American Communities: Cahokia: Thirteenth Century Life on the Mississippi

An urban complex along the Mississippi that flourished from the tenth to the fourteenth centuryPopulated by about 30,000 people by mid-1200

Farmers with highly productive cultivation techniquesCraftsmen producing goods for continent-wide trade

Center of long-distance trading systemCity-state sponsored by tribute and taxation

Mounds were monuments to the elitePriests and governors could look down on people

Huge temple showcased city wealth and power


Part Three:

The First American Settlers


Who Are the Indian People?

The name “Indian” came from Christopher Columbus’ belief he had reached the Indies.

Enormously diverse group of people 2,000 separate culturesSeveral hundred different languagesMany different physical characteristics

Theories arose over the origins of the Indian peoples.Native societies were the degenerate offspring from a superior Old World culture.Joseph de Acosta believed that since Old World animals were present in the Americas, they must have crossed a land bridge used by humans as well.


A forensic artist reconstructed this bust from the skull of “Kennewick Man,” whose skeletal remains were discovered along the Columbia River in 1996. Scientific testing suggested that the remains were more than nine thousand years old.


Migration from Asia

Map: Migration Routes from Asia to America

New genetic research links American Indians and northwest Asians.

Beringia land bridge between Siberia and AlaskaGlaciers locked up enough water to lower sea levels, creating grasslands 750 miles wide from north to south.

Three migrations from Asia beginning about 30,000 years ago

Traveled by land (ice-free corridor) and along coast


MAP 1.1 Migration Routes from Asia to America During the Ice Age, Asia and North America were joined where the Bering Straits are today, forming a migration route for hunting peoples. Either by boat along the coast, or through a narrow corridor between the huge northern glaciers, these migrants began making their way to the heartland of the continent as much as 30,000 years ago.


Clovis: The First American Environmental Adaptation

Clovis tradition was a new and powerful technology.

More sophisticated style of making fluted blades and lance points.

Named for site of first discovery: Clovis, New Mexico

Clovis bands were mobile, foraging communities of 30–50 individuals from interrelated families.

Clovis bands migrated seasonally to the same hunting camps.


These Clovis points are typical of thousands that archaeologists have found at sites all over the continent, dating from a period about 12,000 years ago. When inserted in a spear shaft, these three- to six-inch fluted points made effective weapons for hunting mammoth and other big game. The ancient craftsmen who made these points often took advantage of the unique qualities of the stone they were working to enhance their aesthetic beauty.SOURCE: Photograph by Warren Morgan. © Warren Morgan/CORBIS.


Hunting Traditions

Massive climate shift placed stress on big game animalsGreat Plains hunters concentrated on American bison (buffalo), requiring fast, accurate weapons. Folsom tradition was a refinement of Clovis. Hunters used spear-throwers to hurl lances at bison. Sophisticated hunting techniques included stampeding bison herds over cliffs.

Required sophisticated division of labor and knowledge of food preservation techniques

Map: Native North American Culture Areas and Trade Networks, ca. 1400 CE


Map 1.2 Native North American Culture Areas and Trade Networks, ca. 1400 CE All peoples must adjust their diet, shelter, and other material aspects of their lives to the physical conditions of the world around them. By considering the ways in which Indian peoples developed distinct cultures and adapted to their environments, anthropologists developed the concept of “culture areas.” They divide the continent into nine fundamental regions that have greatly influenced the history of North America over the past 10,000 years. Just as regions shaped the lifeways and history of Indian peoples, after the coming of the Europeans they nurtured the development of regional American cultures. And by determining the origin of artifacts found at ancient sites, historians have devised a conjectural map of Indian trade networks. Among large regional centers and smaller local ones, trade connected Indian peoples of many different communities and regions.


Desert Culture

Desert Culture was a way of life based on small-game hunting and intensified foraging. Foraging followed seasonal routes.Skills included:

producing fiber baskets for collecting; pitch-lined baskets for cooking; nets and traps; and stone tools.

Spread to Great Plains and Southwest West coast developed first permanently settled communities in North America


Forest Efficiency

Eastern North America was a vast forest. Developed during Archaic period and included:

small-game hunting; gathering seeds, nuts, roots, and other plants; burning woodlands and prairies to stimulate growth of berries, fruits, and roots; burning created meadows to provide food that attracted grazing animals for hunting; and fishing.

Populations grew and settlements became permanent. Men and women held different roles.


When, in 1927, archaeologists at Folsom, New Mexico, uncovered this dramatic example of a projectile point embedded in the ribs of a long-extinct species of bison, it was the first proof that Indians had been in North America for many thousands of years.

SOURCE: Courtesy of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.


Part Four:

The Development of Farming


MexicoPeople living in central Mexico developed farming of maize about 5,000 years ago. Other American crops included potatoes, beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, avocados, chocolate, and vanilla.Agriculture stimulated sedentary lifestyle and rise of large, urban complexes. Teotihuacán had 200,000 inhabitants. Mesoamerican civilizations were characterized by an elite class of rulers and priests, monumental public works, and systems of mathematics and hieroglyphic writing.


Mesoamerican maize cultivation, as illustrated by an Aztec artist for the Florentine Codex, a book prepared a few years after the Spanish conquest. The peoples of Mesoamerica developed a greater variety of cultivated crops than those found in any other region in the world, and their agricultural productivity helped sustain one of the world’s great civilizations.

SOURCE: Image #1739-3, courtesy of the Library, American Museum of Natural History.


The Resisted Revolution

Adoption of farming was a gradual process.Climate, abundant food sources, and cultural values sometimes led to rejection of farming.

People often adopted farming simply as a way to increase food production.

Foraging could provide more varied diet, was less influenced by climate, and required less work.

Studies have shown that farmers were more subject to different diseases and famine than foragers.

Favorable climate was pivotal to the adoption of farming.


Increasing Social Complexity

Farming stimulated increasing social complexity. Families were grouped into clans that bound people together into a tribe. Tribes were led by clan leaders of chiefs and advised by councils of elders.

Chiefs were responsible for collection, storage, and distribution of food.

Gender strictly divided labor. Marriage ties were generally weak. Growing populations required larger food surpluses and led to war.


Part Five:

Farming In Early North America


Farmers of the Southwest

Farming began to emerge in the Southwest during the first millennium B.C.E.The Mogollon

The first to practice settled farming way of life growing maize, beans, and squash Lived in pit houses in permanent villages near streams along the Arizona–New Mexico border

The Hohokam: Grew maize, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton Villages in the floodplain of the Salt and Gila rivers between C.E. 300 to 1500Developed the first irrigation system in America, north of Mexico

Shared many traits with Mesoamerican civilization.


The creation of man and woman depicted on a pot (dated about 1000 CE) from the ancient villages of the Mimbres River of southwestern New Mexico, the area of Mogollon culture. Mimbres pottery is renowned for its spirited artistry. Such artifacts were usually intended as grave goods to honor the dead.

SOURCE: Mimbres black on white bowl, with painted representations of man and woman under a blanket. Grant County, New Mexico. Diam. 26.7 cm. Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 24/3198.


The Anasazis

Anasazi farming culture arose on the plateau of Colorado River around Four Corners area where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico meet.

Built densely populated, multistoried apartment complexes (pueblos) Grew high-yield maize in terraced fields irrigated by canals

• Supplemented vegetable diet by hunting with bow and arrow

Culture consisted of 25,000 communitiesDeclined because of extended drought and arrival of Athapascan migrants, leading to abandonment of Four Corners area.


Cliff Palace, at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado, was created 900 years ago when the Anasazis left the mesa tops and moved into more secure and inaccessible cliff dwellings. Facing southwest, the building gained heat from the rays of the low afternoon sun in winter, and overhanging rock protected the structure from rain, snow, and the hot midday summer sun. The numerous round kivas, each covered with a flat roof originally, suggest that Cliff Palace may have had a ceremonial importance.


Farmers of the Eastern Woodlands

Farming culture in eastern North America was dated from the first appearance of pottery about 3,000 years ago.Woodland culture combined hunting and gathering with farming

Sunflowers, small grains, tobaccoDeveloped a complex social structure

Adena culture occupied Ohio ValleyEstablished custom of large burial mounds for leaders


Mississippian Society

Introduction of bow and arrow, development of new maize variety, and switch from digging sticks to hoes were basis of Mississippian culture.

Developed sophisticated maize farming

Centered around permanent villages on Mississippi River floodplain, with Cahokia as urban center

• Linked by river transportation system.


The Great Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, the shape of an uncoiling snake more than 1,300 feet long, is the largest effigy earthwork in the world. Monumental public works like these suggest the high degree of social organization of the Mississippian people.SOURCE: Photo by George Gerster. Comstock Images.


This bottle in the shape of a nursing mother (dated about 1300 BCE) was found at a Mississippian site. Historians can only speculate about the thoughts and feelings of the Mississippians, but such works of art are testimonials to the universal human emotion of maternal affection.

SOURCE: “Nursing Mother Effigy Bottle.” From the Whelpley Collection at the St. Louis Science Center. WL-23. Photograph © 1985 the Detroit Institute of Arts.


The Politics of Warfare and Violence

Warfare predated the colonial eraHunting communities organized small raids on farming communities.Farming communities fought to gain land for cultivation.Highly organized tribal armies developed

• The bow and arrow was the deadly weapon of war. • Scalping originated among warring tribes.

Eventually, many cities collapsed and people scattered forming small decentralized communities.



Seeing History An Early European Image of Native Americans.

Part Six:

Cultural Regions of North America on the Eve of

Colonization


The Population of Indian America

Map: Population Density of Indian Societies in the Fifteenth Century

The population of the Western Hemisphere in the fifteenth century may have numbered 50 million or more.

Population varied by cultural region.Largest populations were centered in Southwest, South, and Northeast—culture areas where first encounters with Europeans occurred.

Map: Indian Groups in the Areas of First Contact


Map 1.3 Population Density of Indian Societies in the Fifteenth Century Based on what is called the “carrying capacity” of different subsistence strategies—the population density they could support-historical demographers have mapped the hypothetical population density of Indian societies in the fifteenth century, before the era of European colonization. Populations were densest in farming societies or in coastal areas with marine resources and sparest in extreme environments like the Great Basin.


Map 1.4 Indian Groups in the Areas of First Contact The Southwest was populated by desert farmers like the Pimas, Tohono O’Odhams, Yumans, and Pueblos, as well as by nomadic hunters and raiders like the Apaches and Navajos. On the eve of colonization, the Indian societies of the South shared many traits of the complex Mississippian farming culture. The Indians of the Northwest were mostly village peoples. In the fifteenth century, five Iroquois groups—the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas—joined together to form the Iroquois Five Nation Confederacy.


The Southwest

Aridity central fact of life in Southwest, though a number of rivers flow out of mountain plateaus.Most peoples practiced dry farming or irrigated agriculture, living in villages.

Dispersed settlements separated by as much as a milePueblos had a commitment to communal village life

Region home to Yuman, Pimas, Pueblos, and most recent arrivals, Athapascans who developed into Navajo and Apaches.


The South

Mild climate with short winters and long summers proved ideal for farming.Large populations lived in villages and towns, often ruled by chiefs.Region home to Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creeks, and Cherokees. Many groups decimated by disease following the arrival of Europeans resulted in poor documentation of history.


The South

The Natchez lived in floodplains of lower Mississippi Delta.Class society ruled by “Great Sun” and a small group of nobles ruling the majorityPersistent territorial conflict with other confederacies elevated warriors to an honored status.Practiced public torture and human sacrifice of enemies Chiefdoms were unstable, resulting in scattering of people into smaller decentralized communities.


The New Queen Being Taken to the King, engraved by Theodor de Bry in the sixteenth century from a drawing by Jacques le Moyne, an early French colonist of Florida. The communities of Florida were hierarchical, with classes and hereditary chiefs, some of whom were women. Here, le Moyne depicted a “queen” being carried on an ornamental litter by men of rank.SOURCE: Neg.No.324281,Photographed by Rota, engraving by de Bry. American Museum of Natural History Library.


The Northeast Colder part of eastern woodlands with geography of coastal plains, mountains, rivers, lakes, and valleys.The Iroquois:

Lived in present-day Ontario and upstate New YorkGrew corn, beans, squash,and sunflowersMatrilineal family lineage centered around longhousesFormed confederacy to eliminate warfare

The Algonquians:Comprised at least 50 distinct, patrilineal culturesWere organized into bands with loose ethnic affiliation in north

Farmed and lived in villages in south


This deerskin cape, embroidered with shells by an Indian craftsman, is thought to be the chief’s mantle that Powhatan, leader of a confederacy of Algonquian villages in the Chesapeake region, gave to an English captain as part of an exchange of presents in 1608. The animal effigies are suggestive of the complex religious beliefs centering on the relationship of hunters to their prey.

Source: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England, U.K.


The Hiawatha wampum belt of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Five Nation Confederacy is exquisitely constructed of nearly seven thousand purple and white drilled shell beads, woven together with buckskin thongs and hemp thread. It is a ceremonial artifact, a symbol of unity of the five Iroquois nations. With the central tree or heart pointed up, the first two squares on the right represent the Mohawk and Oneida, the tree stands for the Onondaga, where the council met, and the third and fourth squares for the Cayuga and Seneca nations. The belt itself dates from the early eighteenth century, but the design is thought to have originated with the Confederacy itself, perhaps in the twelfth century CE.


Part Seven:

Conclusion


chapter 1 a continent of villages to 1500 chapter 1 a continent of villages to 1500 © 2009 pearson...

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