Name Answer Key
Chapter 2 Study Guide
1. How does the land bridge theory help scientists explain the movement of people from Asia to
North America? Scientists believe there was a land bridge between Asia and Alaska, and people
moved over a period of thousands of years from Asia to N. America.
2. How did life change for people once they began farming?
They no longer had to follow the animals they hunted for food. They could stay in one place.
3. What achievement of Mayan culture was unique among early Americans?
They invented a number system including the number 0.
4. Which two language groups lived in the Eastern Woodlands region?
Algonquian & Iroquois
5. What is one example of a way that Native Americans modified their environment?
They used resources to build and to farm.
6. What is the Iroquois League and what was the purpose of it?
Five Iroquois Nations created a confederation to settle their fights over hunting grounds peacefully.
7. Water and buffalo were important resources for which cultural region? Plains
8. When food was scarce, families in which cultural region banded together to share seal meat?
Arctic
9. Match the following terms with their meanings.
E__culture
a. an object made by a person
A__artifacts
b. The way people of an area use resources to meet their needs.
B__economy
c. a celebration to honor a cultural or religious event
C__ceremony
d. work that is divided so that it is possible to produce more goods
D__division of labor
e. a group of people with ways of life, religion and learning
10. What resources did the Northwest Coast people have that helped them live and impacted their
economy? Trees & Fish/Whales
11. Trees were important to which two cultural regions? Eastern Woodlands, NorthwestWhy were
they not as important to the Plains Indians? Plains didn’t have any trees.
12. What is a civilization? What are some of the features of a civilization?
A group of people who share similar ways of life, religion, and learning. Features might be:
government, language, religion, food, shelters, clothing, education…..
13. Name two features of each cultural region we studied.
Eastern Woodlands: animal skins, corn, beans, squash, longhouses, Iroquois League, fish,
water, wildlife
Plains Indians: buffalo, travois, moved to follow their prey, tepees
Southwest: farming, hogans, grew cotton & used to weave clothing, pueblos built homes
against mesas
West: farming, trade networks, houses made from sticks & grasses, salmon, fishing
Northwest: major resource: trees, clothing made of bark, whales, longhouses (up to 60
people), clans, totem poles (tell stories)
Arctic: seals (Food, natural resource), animal skins, igloos, 60-300 people (formed by many
families)
14. For each group, list the type of housing they used and what resources were needed to build their
houses:
Cultural region
Type of housing
Resources needed
Eastern Woodlands
Longhouses
Wood
Plains Indians
Tepees
Animal skin, poles
Southwest and the West
Pueblo
Adobe bricks
Northwest
Longhouses
Wood
Arctic
Igloos
Ice & Snow