1. Pre-Columbian America

2. Migration to the Americas
Estimates: as long as 35,000 years ago
Crossed the Bering Sea over a land bridge
As people fanned through the W. Hemisphere, separate and distinct cultures emerged

3. Agriculture & Resources
Agriculture is the key to the birth of civilization
Control over the food supply
Increased population growth
Allow for groups to splinter off and form new communities
Pursuits of other interests
Maize
Societies developed based on the resources available to them

4. Mayans, Aztecs & Incans

5. Mayan Structures
Ball Court – Chichen Itza
Observatory

6. Hohokam & Anasazi (Southwestern Cultures)
Spanish called them Pueblos
Terraced buildings
Complex irrigation system

7. Northwest/Pacific Coast Cultures
Homes were plank houses made of red cedar
Used totem poles to guard villages
Lived off of fish and hunting. Not as agriculturally based

8. Mississippian Cultures
Built great earthen structures
Used rivers to trade with other cultures
Cahokia

9. Eastern Cultures & the Iroquois
Hunted, fished & planted
Fertilzer
Three Sisters
Wooden structures and boats
Iroquois
Confederation of tribes – political structure
Communal societies
Matrilineal in nature

10. Contact European contact begins with Columbus
Estimates are million pre- Columbian Native Americans in W. Hemisphere (about 3-10 million north of Mexico)
Columbian Exchange