Native Americans

1
Native Americans

• Native Americans were the people who lived in
  America before people from other countries came
  here.

2
Native Americans respected nature.
They took care of the earth and only used what
they needed.
3
Native Americans used natural resources to meet
their needs.
trees
water
stones
buffalo
Natural resources are things in nature that
people can use.
4

• Native Americans lived in culture groups.

• The people in a culture group have the same way
  of life.

• A culture group is a group of people who live in
  the same region.

5
Each region had different physical surroundings.
Some regions had forests.
Others were mostly desert.
6
Still others had oceans nearby.
7
Each region had different natural resources.
Each culture group used the natural resources in
its region to meet its needs.
8
For this reason, Native American culture groups
had different homes.
Those who lived near deserts used clay or stones
to build their homes.
Those who lived on the Plains used buffalo skins
to make their homes.
Still others lived near forests. They built
their homes of wood.
9
Many Native American culture groups built their
homes in villages or cities.
These are the remains of an ancient Anasazi
cliff village.
10
Other culture groups, like the Plains Indians,
were nomadic.
They could not live in one place. They had to
move around to follow the buffalo.
11
The physical surroundings of each region also
affected how each culture group got its food.
Native Americans in the Eastern Woodlands were
very lucky. That region had forests, lakes and
rivers, a nearby ocean, and good climate. These
Native Americans could farm, hunt, and fish for
food.
12
There were no forests in the Southwest region.
The land was rocky and uneven.
There were many mesas, or large rocks with flat
tops. The Indians who lived in this region were
farmers. They planted their crops on the tops of
mesas.