People Arrive in the Americas

Ancient Americans

People Arrive in the Americas

Main Idea People began arriving in the Americas around 27,000 years ago.

Scientists are not sure how the first humans came to North America. They have several theories. A theory is an explanation or belief about how things happen or will happen. As scientists make new discoveries, they change their theories. One theory is that hunters first came to the Americas across a land bridge between Asia and North America. Another theory is that people traveled by boat along the coast or across the oceans.

Beringia

Thousands of years ago, the Earth was much colder than it is today. This time in history is called the Ice Age because glaciers covered almost half of the world. A glacier is a huge, thick sheet of slowly moving ice.

During the Ice Age, much of the Earth’s water was frozen in glaciers. In some areas, the ocean floor was no longer covered by water. At the Bering Strait, between Alaska and Asia, the ocean floor became grassland and formed a bridge that scientists call Beringia.

Beringia was cool, wet land where many kinds of animals lived. Humans hunted the biggest animals. Over many years, hunters followed these animals from Asia across Beringia into North America. Movement like this, from one region to another, is called migration.

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Scientists believe that the migration over Beringia stopped about 10,000 years ago. Around that time, the Ice Age began to end. The glaciers slowly melted, filling the oceans with water. Water covered the land bridge between Asia and North America. It is still covered by water today.

The people who crossed into North America followed the migrating animal herds south. The hunters spread across North and South America. These ancient Americans are known as Paleo-Indians. Paleo means past. They were the ancestors of modern American Indians. Ancestors are relatives who lived before you.

Civilizations Develop

Main Idea: Farming led to villages, more people, and civilizations

For thousands of years, Paleo-Indians lived by hunting animals. About

11,000 years ago, many of the bigger animals began to die. People continued to hunt smaller animals. They also fished and gathered wild plants.

Over time, people adapted to changes in their surroundings. To adapt is to change a way of life to fit an environment. Around 9,000 years ago, some Paleo-Indians began to use agriculture to feed themselves. Agriculture is farming or growing plants.

Scientists think that people in present-day Mexico were the first people in the Americas to practice agriculture. They gathered the seeds of useful wild plants and learned to grow them as crops. These crops included corn, beans, and squash.

Agriculture not only changed the food people ate, it changed the way they lived. It takes months to raise crops, so many Paleo-Indians began staying in one place to care for the plants. With a

steady supply of food, more families could survive. Populations grew and people built villages and cities. These changes were all part of the growth of civilizations. A civilization is a group of people living together who have systems of government, religion, and culture.

The Mound Builders

The Adena, Hopewell, and Mississipians were among the earliest people to create large, complex villages in North America. These three civilizations are all called Mound Builders. They built giant mounds, or hills, out of the earth, which they often used to bury their dead. Both the Adena and the Hopewell buried jewelry, tools, and pottery inside their mounds. Some of these mounds still exist today. The town of Cahokia in Illinois is on of the most famous Mississipian sites, with over 85 mounds.

The mound-building civilizations

began about 3,000 years ago and lasted for about 2,500 years. The Adena and Hopewell lived in what is now the Ohio River Valley.

The Adena made some of their mounds in the shape of animals or symbols. The Great Serpent Mound in Ohio is shaped like a snake.

The Mississippian civilization was similar to the Adena and Hopewell civilizations. It spread along the lower Mississippi Valley, over most of the Southeast, and as far north as Wisconsin. Some experts believe that the Mississippians are the ancestors of Creek Indians.

Ancient Pueblo Peoples

Another American Indian civilization lived in what is now the Southwest, about two thousand years ago. They were the Ancient Pueblo peoples. Pueblo is the Spanish word for town. Some of the Ancient Pueblo lived in large buildings with many rooms. The buildings looked like towns to the Spanish who arrived in North America many years later.

By building houses out of mud and stone, these Ancient Pueblo could group homes on top of one another. Around the year 1100, they were building structures as large as modern apartment buildings. They built Pueblo Bonito in New Mexico, which was four or five stories high with hundreds of rooms.

They also built underground rooms called kivas, which were used for religious ceremonies. Each village had a number of kivas. Pueblo Boito had 37, including three or four great kivas, where hundreds of people could gather.

Around 1300, the Ancient Pueblo left their villages, No one knows why. It is possible that lack of rain or wood and warfare with other people caused them to move. Many went south and settled along the Rio Grande and Little Colorado rivers. Today, the descendants of the Ancient Pueblo live in Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico.

The Aztecs

The Aztec civilization ruled in Central Mexico for about 200 years, beginning around the year 1300. Their capital city was Tenochtitlan (the NOHCH tee TLAN).

Tenochtitlan had hundreds of buildings, roads, and a population of 250,000 people. The Aztecs made their own calendar, and built large temples as part of their religion. Some temples had a playing court for a game that was like modern-day basketball.

At the time the Aztec civilization lived in Central Mexico, groups of American Indians had settled in almost every region of North America. These groups adapted to different environments and developed their own cultures.