The Peoples of North America Chapter 8 Section 1 Early hunters and gatherers: The first people to live in North America were hunters who entered from Asia during the last Ice Age. By around 1000 b.c., Eastern Woodlands peoples, such as the Hopewell people, had begun to settle in farming villages, although they still gathered wild plants as food.

The Peoples of North America Full-time farming and Mississippian culture: By around a.d. 700, people in the Mississippi River valley had shifted to full-time farming. Some of their cities, such as Cahokia, had populations of more than 10,000. The Iroquois: Northeast of the Mississippian people lived the Iroquois peoples. They dwelled in villages of longhouses, with the men hunting and the women farming and gathering wild plants. The various Iroquois groups often warred against each other until an alliance of five groups, called the Iroquois League, was formed in the 1500s. Representatives of the groups formed a Grand Council that met to settle differences.

The Peoples of North America Plains Indians: On the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River valley lived peoples who both farmed and hunted buffalo. The buffalo provided them not only with meat but also with skins from which they made their clothing and shelters.

The Peoples of North America The Anasazi: In the southwestern part of what is now the United States, the Anasazi peoples used irrigation techniques to establish an extensive farming society. Their communities, including those at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, consisted of multistory pueblos.

The Maya Rise and fall of the Maya: The Maya civilization arose on the Yucatán Peninsula and dominated a large part of Mesoamerica between A.D. 300 and 900. The reasons for the civilization's decline are not clearly understood. Maya city-states: Maya civilization consisted of a number of city-states, some with populations of more than 100,000, each governed by a hereditary ruling class. These city-states often warred with one another. Maya social structure: Maya rulers claimed descent from the gods. Below them on the social scale were nobles and a class of priest-scribes. Some peasants and townspeople worked as merchants, artisans, and government officials, but most peasants were farmers. Men engaged in warfare and hunting, whereas women supervised their homes and children.

Maya Religion and Culture Maya religion: The Maya believed in a variety of divine powers, both good and evil, that controlled all life. They appeased the gods through rituals of human sacrifice. Maya writing: The Maya developed a hieroglyphic writing system, which they used in books and inscriptions, many of which record important events in Maya history. Maya calendar and mathematics: The calendar, or Long Count, of the Maya was based on cycles of creation and destruction. They calculated time both in solar years and in sacred years, the latter being used by priests who also used the Maya base-20 mathematics for astronomical purposes.