Pre-Columbian America
U.S. History, Fall 2002
• Problem of Prehistory
• First Immigrants and Major Eras
• Cultural Diversity in Post-Archaic Period
– Mississippian: Cahokia and Hopewell
– Eastern Woodlands: Iroquois
– The Southwest: Anasazi
Problem of Prehistory
1. Primarily non-literate: very few
documents for historians to examine
•
European conquerors systematically
destroyed many of the documents that existed
Problem of Prehistory
1. Primarily non-literate: very few
documents for historians to examine
•
European conquerors systematically
destroyed many of the documents that existed
2. European bias:
•
most of the existing documents that describe
Indian cultures written by Europeans or by
Indians being watched by Europeans
Problem of Prehistory
1. Primarily non-literate: very few documents for
historians to examine
•
European conquerors systematically destroyed many
of the documents that existed
2. European bias:
•
most of the existing documents that describe Indian
cultures written by Europeans or by Indians being
watched by Europeans
3. Break with oral culture:
•
religious conversion, demographic collapse, and loss
of culture makes evidence from Indian oral tradition
problematic
Problem of Prehistory
1.
2.
3.
Primarily non-literate: very few documents for historians to examine
•
European conquerors systematically destroyed many of the
documents that existed
European bias:
•
most of the existing documents that describe Indian cultures
written by Europeans or by Indians being watched by Europeans
Break with oral culture:
•
religious conversion, demographic collapse, and loss of culture
makes evidence from Indian oral tradition problematic
Therefore: Archaeology, Carbon-14 dating, dendrochronology
First Immigrants and Major Eras
1. Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE)
First Immigrants and Major Eras
1. Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE)
2. Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
First Immigrants and Major Eras
1. Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE)
2. Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
3. Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE)
First Immigrants and Major Eras
1.
2.
3.
4.
Beringia (30,000-12,000 BCE)
Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500 BCE)
Post-Archaic (500 BCE-Contact)
Beringia (30-12,000 BCE)
Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck
up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level
(global warming in reverse)
Beringia (30-12,000 BCE)
Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck
up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level
(global warming in reverse)
Land bridge created between Asia and
North America
Beringia (30-12,000 BCE)
Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck
up the oceans’ waters and lowers sea level
(global warming in reverse)
Land bridge created between Asia and
North America
Old and New Worlds meet for first time in
millions of years (since Pangean
supercontinent broke up)
100 Million Years Ago
Present Day Continents
Beringia (30-12,000 BCE)
Last Major Ice Age: Expanded ice caps suck up the
oceans’ waters and lowers sea level (global
warming in reverse)
Land bridge created between Asia and North
America
Old and New Worlds meet for first time in
millions of years (since Pangean supercontinent
broke up)
Indians enter a world without humans, and so have
many advantages in conquering the continents
Mammoths on the Land Bridge
Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
• Technological breakthrough: Flaked point
spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom)
Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
• Technological breakthrough: Flaked point
spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom)
food sources more reliable
Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
• Technological breakthrough: Flaked point
spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom)
food sources more reliable
more stable habitation
Paleo-Indian (12-8,000 BCE)
• Technological breakthrough: Flaked point
spearpoints (Clovis, Folsom)
food sources more reliable
more stable habitation
population increases
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500
BCE)
• Warming climate and “Pleistocene
Overkill”
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500
BCE)
• Warming climate and “Pleistocene
Overkill”
dwindling game supply
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500
BCE)
• Warming climate and “Pleistocene
Overkill”
dwindling game supply
transition to agriculture
(the “Neolithic revolution”)
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500
BCE)
• Central Mexicans were the first to transition
to agriculture around 7,000 BCE (maize)
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500
BCE)
• Central Mexicans were the first to transition
to agriculture around 7,000 BCE (maize)
slowly spreads outward (primarily by the
efforts of women)
Archaic/Neolithic (8,000-500
BCE)
• Central Mexicans were the first to transition
to agriculture around 7,000 BCE (maize)
slowly spreads outward (primarily by the
efforts of women)
Demands of farming (long period between
planting and farming, need for
irrigation)more complex societies,
hierarchy, specialization, trade
Post-Archaic (500 BCE-Contact)
Marked by growing cultural diversity:
• 9 major cultural groups
• 2,000 cultures
Cultural Diversity in the PostArchaic Period
Diversity between and within groups
increased
• Diversity between groups facilitated by
many different ecological/climate zones in
the Americas
Arctic
Temperate
Tropical
Tropical
Arctic
Climate Zones
Cultural Diversity in the PostArchaic Period
Diversity between and within groups increased
• Diversity between groups was facilitated by many
different ecological/climate zones in the Americas
• Diversity within groups grew through trade and
specialization: individuals focused on their
particular skills (politics, pottery, hunting, art,
religion, jewelry)
Cultural Diversity:
Mississippian/Hopewell
• Major trading culture that dominated from
Wisconsin to Louisiana
Cultural Diversity:
Mississippian/Hopewell
• Major trading culture that dominated from
Wisconsin to Louisiana
• Major urban area:
Cahokia: trading/political/religious center
– 30,000 residents in 1200 AD
Cahokia
Burial Mound
Geometric Mounds
Animal Mounds
Collapse of
Mississippian/Hopewell
Cahokia eventually collapsed in part because
the Indians over-farmed the area and could
no longer support such a large, urban
population. Competition from neighboring
tribes and disease introduced by Europeans
also may have led to their collapse.
Cultural Diversity:
Iroquois
• The Iroquois lived in the Great Lakes
Region and were primarily hunters and
gatherers, although they farmed to a limited
degree
Cultural Diversity:
Iroquois
• The Iroquois lived in the Great Lakes
Region and were primarily hunters and
gatherers, although they farmed to a limited
degree
• They lived in villages made of wooden
longhouses
Iroquois Man
Cultural Diversity:
Iroquois
• Iroquois society appears to have been
matrilineal: property was owned by women
and was passed from mother to daughter;
women had important powers in society
Iroquois Woman
Cultural Diversity:
Iroquois
• The Iroquois League brought together the Six
Nations into a political and military alliance
• The Iroquois went to war with their neighbors,
especially in order to kidnap Indians who would
often be adopted into Iroquois society
• The Iroquois were feared by many other tribes in
the Great Lakes Region (some of whom would
align with the Europeans for protection against the
Iroquois)
Cultural Diversity: Anasazi
• The Anasazi are the ancestors of the Hopi
and Pueblo peoples of the American
Southwest
• The Anasazi built some of the most
populated cities in the world at the height of
their civilization
Chaco Canyon
• The largest Anasazi community was Chaco
Canyon, an area in present-day
northwestern New Mexico that contained 12
cities.
Chaco Canyon
Anasazi
• The Anasazi were also famous for building
into the sides of cliffs, partly as defense,
partly in order to enable massive buildings.
Bandelier Mountain: An Anasazi
Suburb
• Bandelier Mountain (which is actually a
canyon) was a settlement south of Chaco
Canyon that was the site of the world’s
largest apartment complex until beat out by
one built in NYC in 1880.
Bandelier Mountain
Anasazi: Collapse
• The Anasazi culture collapse and the
population dispersed into the smaller Hopi
and Pueblo cultures in part because of a
sustained drought (see Cahokia) and
because of European incursions.
Summary
• Native American peoples conquered a hitherto
unsettled land when a land bridge opened to the
New World in the last Ice Age.
• Spreading across many different ecological zones,
the Native Americans developed an astonishingly
diverse set of cultures, from settled agriculture to
nomadic hunting and gathering. It is therefore
incorrect to speak of an “Indian culture” or even
of a single Indian “people.”