Vocabulary

You might want to study the ones on index cards from last time.

Please note: These aren’t word for word.

1. migrate – to move from one place and establish a

home in a new place, a movement of a large number of people.

2. environment – all of the physical surroundings in a place, including land, water, animals, plants, and climates

3. natural resources – useful materials found in nature, including water, vegetation, animals, and minerals

4. culture – a people’s way of life, including beliefs, customs, food, dwellings, and clothing

5. cultural region – an area in which a group of people share a similar culture and language

Notes Section 1

-Europeans came only 500 years ago

-Native Americans first arrived 10,000 years ago

-Migrated on foot from Siberia to Alaska on a land bridge known as Beringia

-Drop in temperatures and water levels during the Ice Age (30,000 years ago) exposed the strip of land.

-Large Asian mammals, such as mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and mastodons, first crossed, slowly spreading eastward and southward

-Siberians hunters followed the animals and reached America

-After their crossing, the bridge later melted as the earth warmed

-The people were nomads, gathering grains and fruits. But depended mostly on hunting.

-They used spears to fell their prey.

-By the time Beringia was gone, the animals the natives depended on began to die out.

-With the mammoths and other food sources gone, they began hunting deer, birds, and rodents.

-Near the coasts, they would net and catch fish.

-9,000 years ago, natives in Mexico discovered to plant and raise maize (early form of corn).

-It provided a reliable food source, which ended some of the groups’ nomadic lifestyles.

-They continued to plant other seeds and grew pumpkins, gourds, beans, chili peppers, avocados, and squashes.

-Villages rather than groups of constantly moving people arose 5,000 years ago.

-With less traveling and more time to spare, the people began to improve their way of living.

-They began making permanent structures of clay, stone, brick, or wood.

-Made pottery and cloth with dyes from roots and herbs.

-Also began to form governmental and religious structures.

Section 2

-Before the Europeans, the civilizations of these natives were being built.

-Made complex ways of writing, counting, and tracking time.

-The largest and most advanced the civilizations were the Olmec, Maya, the Aztec, and Inca.

-The Maya possessed a theocracy.

-Mayan priests used hieroglyphics.

-The Inca cut terraces to better cultivate crops. They grew maize, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, chili peppers, melons, cotton, and potatoes.

Section 3

-The Homokam were skilled in obtaining water from the desert, which they lived.

-The Anasazi built pueblos in an area in the Four Corners.

-The Anasazi may have died out because of droughts in their area.

-The Mound Builders consisted of the Adena, Cahokia, and the Hopewell peoples.

-The Mound Builders built mounds in which to bury their dead.

-Found from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi River valley. From the Great Lakes to Florida.

-The Cahokia were the largest of the three and were found in Illinois.

-Built Monks Mound which was 100 feet above the ground.

-The North consisted of the Inuit people.

-Thought to be the last people to cross the land bridge to America.

-Lived in the Arctic and required many skills.

-Most of the skills were brought over from northern Siberia, where they previously lived.

-Lived in igloos.

-Furs and sealskins were warm and waterproof clothing that they wore.

-They hunted – caribou - and fished – whales, seals, and walruses.

-They used skin-covered boats.

-Made clothing from caribou skin.

-Burned oil from seals in lamps.

The Western people include the Tlingit, Haida, Chinook, Nez Perce, Yakima, Pomo, Ute, and Shoshone.

-Used the forest and sea to live.

-Used wood for houses, canoes, cloth, and baskets.

-Used spears and traps to catch salmon.

-Fish was important for the Northwestern people – preserved the salmon by smoking them.

-The people (Yakima, Nez Perce) of the plateau region (between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains) depended on salmon.

-They used rivers and forests. Hunting and gathering. Lived in earthen houses.

-California region had coasts in the north that were used and deserts in the south that were occupied, as well as a central valley.

-Great Basin (Sierra Nevadas and Rockies) had a dry climate, and the soil was too hard and rocky for farming. The people (Ute and Shoshone) had to travel to find food. They lived in temporary shelters.

-The Southwestern peoples had a varied lifestyle. The Hopi, Acoma, and Zuni built homes of adobe while they farmed. The Apache and Navajo hunted buffalo and other game. The Navajo eventually settled in stationary homes.

-The Plains people were nomadic and hunted, living in teepees. The women grew in on or two seasons. The horses let loose by the Spanish were important for the Natives.

-The Eastern people lived in woodlands. They used federations to keep their people together.