History of art in America What kind of art might primitive people make? Bannerstone ca. 2000 B.C. United States, Ohio or Illinois / Archaic / Slate, banded Bannerstones are weights for spear-throwers, the long shafts that propelled the actual darts, thus extending the thrower's reach. Art 3.1 Recognize and use subject matter, themes, and symbols in works of art. Art 1.3.2 Explore how ideas are communicated through the use of media, techniques, and processes. Common Core : RLA.8.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. Math: Understand that a two-dimensional figure is similar to another if the second can be obtained from the first by a sequence of rotations, reflections, translations, and dilations

Many thousands of years. before Christopher Columbus’ Many thousands of years before Christopher Columbus’ ships landed in the Bahamas, a different group of people discovered America: the nomadic ancestors of modern Native Americans who hiked over a “land bridge” from Asia to what is now Alaska more than 12,000 years ago. By the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million people were already living in the Americas. Of these, some 10 million lived in the area that would become the United States. As time passed, these migrants and their descendants pushed south and east, adapting as they went. In order to keep track of these diverse groups, anthropologists and geographers have divided them into “culture areas,” or rough groupings of peoples who shared similar habitats and characteristics. http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/native-american-cultures

Trying to find out when man first came to America, and how he lived during the hundreds of centuries before the Europeans arrived, the archaeologist is like a child trying to solve a picture puzzle when he has in his possession only one percent of the pieces. As a result he must look to other fields of science to fit together a series of clues to give a generalized impression and explanation of prehistoric culture and society. The artifact is the most fundamental element of archaeological investigation. It is commonly defined as anything which exhibits any physical attributes that can be assumed to be the result of human activity. Archaeologists look at their finds not merely as objects to be examined and admired but as vital parts of the extinct society which made them. The ultimate goal is to study the society that created the objects, not just the objects. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1980/2/80.02.07.x.html

Trying to find out when man first came to America, and how he lived during the hundreds of centuries before the Europeans arrived, the archaeologist is like a child trying to solve a picture puzzle when he has in his possession only one percent of the pieces. As a result he must look to other fields of science to fit together a series of clues to give a generalized impression and explanation of prehistoric culture and society. The artifact is the most fundamental element of archaeological investigation. It is commonly defined as anything which exhibits any physical attributes that can be assumed to be the result of human activity. Archaeologists look at their finds not merely as objects to be examined and admired but as vital parts of the extinct society which made them. The ultimate goal is to study the society that created the objects, not just the objects. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1980/2/80.02.07.x.html

A critical factor in the arrival of man in North America seems to have been the existence of an ice free corridor in Western Canada. Analysis of the soil and rock formations proves that a fertile, relatively warm corridor first emerged from the ice along the Alaskan coast in the Yukon, Mackainze and Frasier River valleys and southeast of the Rocky Mountains. We may suppose that successive waves of immigrants from Siberia pushed down the corridor into the interior of America. It should be understood that the Americas were not settled within a short period of time or by a single group of people. Migration consisted of a slow prolonged spread of successive waves of people. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1980/2/80.02.07.x.html