1. Notes Unit 1 Part 2: Early Natives
How does the environment affect the development of a society?
How did the American Indians adapt to and modify their environment?

2. How did people first get to the Americas?
People first came to the Western Hemisphere by migrating from Asia over a land bridge called the Bering Strait about 35,000 years ago during the Ice Age.
These people were nomads (people who moved from place to place)
They followed herds of animals they hunted.
They crossed the interior of North America and reached the Texas regions about 10,000 years ago during the Paleolithic or Stone Age.

3. Bering Strait 3

4. Path of migration across Bering Strait land bridge

5. How did people first get to the Americas?
Freezing temperatures of the Ice Age turns ocean water into glaciers.
Ocean levels fall.
Bering Strait becomes dry, forming a land bridge between Asia and North America.
Early Asian peoples crossed the land bridge at the Bering Strait.
“Native Americans” or “American Indians” settle in North America.

6. What are the Progressions of Society?
Hunting
Hunting and Gathering
Farming

7. How did Early People get food?
Early people lived in small groups and hunted large animals (mastodons, mammoths, and giant bison) for food.
The people had tools and developed an atlatl, (notched throwing stick) for hunting.
The hunter-foragers stayed in one area longer than other hunters, but did not settle permanently, always looking for food.

8. How did Early People get food?
While hunters and gatherers searched for food in Texas, people in central Mexico were growing their own food.
Around A.D. 100, several groups in Texas adopted this settled way of life.
Farming changed the people’s way of life because a dependable source of food meant that they could settle in one place.
Corn, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, etc.
Living in one place led to more complex societies that included craft workers, warriors, and political and religious leaders.

9. What is culture?
Culture includes language, customs, clothing, shelter, ways of working and playing, and beliefs.
By around the year 1500, when Europeans arrived, many different American Indian people lived in North America.

10. What are the Texas Indian cultures?
People living in Texas belonged to one of four cultures:
1. Southeastern: Sedentary; food-rich environment; complex society
2. Gulf: Nomadic; Hunters-gatherers
3. Publoan: Sedentary; Farmers
4. Plains – Nomadic; buffalo dependent; fierce warriors

11. The Four Cultures of Texas Indians
Plains
Southeastern
Pueblo
Gulf Coast

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