Chapter 9 The Americas Section 1: The Earliest Americans

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Chapter 9 - The Americas Section 1 The
Earliest Americans
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• The Story Continues
• According to one Native American myth, people
  once lived on a floating island. One day their
  ruler said to them, We will make a new place
  where another people may grow. The story goes on
  to describe events that led to the creation of
  Earth. The population of the Americas may have
  begun in a similar way. When people from another
  land decided to move eastward, they launched a
  migration that developed into Native American
  cultures.

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I. The Land and the People

• The Americas stretch more than 9,000 miles
• from Greenland to the tip of South America

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I. The Land and the People

• Mountains run along the western coast the
• Rocky Mountains in N. America and the Andes
• in S. America

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I. The Land and the People

• Two great river systems flow through these
• continents the Mississippi and the Amazon

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I. The Land and the People

• N. America is separated from Asia by a
• narrow strip of water called the Bering Strait

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I. The Land and the People

• During the Ice Age, the bottom of the Bering
• Strait became a land bridge (Beringia)

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I. The Land and the People

• 35,000 and 8,000 years ago Historians
• theorize early peoples migrated from Asia
• across the land bridge

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I. The Land and the People

• They moved into N. America, migrated into
• Mesoamerica, and reached S. America as
• early as 10,500 B.C.

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I. The Land and the People

• Many Native Americans explain their origins
• with creation myths that include a creator or
• supreme being

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I. The Land and the People

• Native American creation myths often tell a
• story of people emerging from an underground
• world

According to "American Indian Creation Myths,"
the creation myths themselves fall into five
general categories 1) from chaos or nothingness,
2) from a cosmic egg or primal material mound, 3)
from world parents who are separated, 4) from a
process of earth-diving, 5) from several stages
of emergence from other worlds"
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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• The earliest people in the Americas were
• nomadic hunter-gathers

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• Animals hunted included mammoths,
• mastodons, horses, and camels all became
• extinct about 10,000 years ago

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• Extinction may have been caused by a
• massive climate change that began 11,000
• years ago

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• The hunter-gatherers had to rely more on
• plants and farming lifestyle emerged

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• The earliest known farming in the Americas
• began in Mexico and spread north and south

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• Farming developed more slowly in the
• Americas than in other parts of the world

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• Early Native Americans did not invent plows
• they used sticks to dig holes and plant seeds

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II. The Development of American Agriculture

• As the food supply became reliable, food
• surpluses became available - villages and
• towns began to appear