The Great Convergence

1
The Great Convergence

• The Great Convergence refers to an era in world
  history when peoples from the Old World and the
  New World made contact (1400s-1600s)

2
Old World

• Old World refers to Europe, Africa, and Asia

3
New World

• New World refers to North and South America

4
Beringia-Land Bridge

• The first people to populate the continents now
  known as North and South America came from Asia
• During the last Ice Age (some 10,000-15,000 years
  ago) people migrated from Asia to North America
  across a land bridge--Beringia

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Beringia continued

• Migration- a movement of people or animals from
  one region to another
• The migration of people across the land bridge
  took place over a long period of time (several
  thousand years)
• It is believed that these people traveled south
  following herds of animals

http//news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/
05/the-american-mastodon.jpg
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Beringia continued

• Over time, these people settled throughout North
  and South America and became the Native
  Americans
• About 8,000-10,000 years ago the Earths climate
  grew warmer, ending the Ice Age. Glaciers
  melted, sea levels rose, and the Beringia land
  bridge was covered with water.

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Beringia as time goes by
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Native American Adaptations

• Native Americans adapted to their environments
  they learned to use the natural resources for
  food, clothing, tools, and shelter
• For example, early Americans who lived in the
  Arctic region survived by building temporary
  shelters called iglus out of blocks of snow and
  ice
• http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99
  /Igloo_outside.jpg

9
Native American Cultural Regions

• Over generations, Native Americans developed
  their own cultures
• Culture a peoples way of life, including
  beliefs, customs, food, dwellings, and clothing
• People living in the same environment often
  adapted in similar ways.
• We can group Native American peoples into
  Cultural Regions (an area made up of people who
  share a similar language and way of life)
• By the 1400s, 1 to 2 million Native American
  people lived as 8 cultural groups in the area
  that is now the United States.