Native Americans

Native Americans

1. First Americans

   • Land bridge from Asia-Alaska
     • shared genetic marker proves this
     • melted, created Bering Strait
       • Navajos and Apaches 8,000 years ago
       • Aleut and Inuit 5,000 years ago
   • Hunting and gathering: economic basis
     • hunted animals to extinction
       • adopted new weapons
     • 6,000 BC: raising domesticated crops
       • maize, beans, squash
     • good diet and fertile soil--population growth--wealthy societies
   • Kin-based groupings--complex structure
     • rituals, founding myths, crafts

2. Mayas

   • Location: Yucatan and Guatemala
     • big urban centers based on irrigation
   • Population: 20,000 in Tikai, 300 AD
     • farmers built large temples
   • elite class "descending from gods"
   • Culture from Olmecs
     • astronomers
     • hieroglyphics
     • complex and prosperous
   • Demise from long drought, 800-900 AD
     • few tribes to stop Spanish invaders in 1520's

3. Aztecs

   • took over city of Teotihuacan, 800 AD
   • Location: on island in Lake Texcoco, 1325
     • Tenochtitlan: main big city
     • ruled most of Central Mexico
     • merchants forged trading routes from Rio Grande to Panama
   • Culture: priests, warrior-nobles over farmers
     • irrigation
     • human and economical tributes
     • strong politics and military: challenge to Spanish invaders
   • Population: 200,000, 1500

4. Hopewell (North)

   • Location: Ohio
   • Culture: large villages and burial mounds
     • less great than Southern NAs
   • Economy: had domesticated crops, 100 AD
     • trading network: Lousiana-Wisconsin
       • trading networks demised, 400 AD

5. Hohokam (Southwest), 600 AD

   • Location: Arizona and New Mexico
   • Culture: worshipped on platforms
     • red pottery
     • built pueblos: stone, mud-brick (multi-story/room)
   • Economy: irrigation

6. Mogollon

   • Location: New Mexico
   • Culture: black and white pottery
   • Demise: droughts and soil exhaustion
     • Descendants (Hopi, Zuni, Acomas) adapted

7. Anasazi (900 AD)

   • Culture: master architects
     • built roads (400 mi)

8. Mississippi (800 AD)

   • Economy: crops
     • imported maize from Mesoamerica
     • agricultural surplus
   • Culture: strong religion
     • small, fortified temple cities
     • elite class of nobles and priests
       • "descended from sun god"
       • over farmers
     • required tributes and waged war (less powerful than Aztecs)
     • Chief died, his wives would be sacrificed
   • Location: Cahokia (main city), now St. Louis, 1150
     • 15-20,000 people
   • Demise: crops, diseases, over-burdened environment, after 1300
     • When de Soto invaded, he found Calusa, Apalachee, and Timucua people, 1539

9. Eastern Woodland Peoples

   • Location: (east of Miss)
   • Culture: self-governing tribes
     • clans: trace back to common ancestors
     • elders and chiefs conducted ceremonies, resolved feuds, made war policy and banned marriage within clan
     • relied on kin ties to govern
     • share everything

10. Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws

    • Location: Alabama and Miss
    • Culture: once chiefdoms before De Soto, now small communities
      • De Soto brought disease

11. Iroquois

    • Culture: Muskogean and Algonquian-speaking
      • matrilineal rights to land
      • no emotional intimacy between spouses
      • religion centered around agriculture
    • Economy: men hunted and fished, women raised crops
    • Uncertain life: could only give invaders furs and land