1. The Earliest Americans

2. The Land and the People The physical setting First arrivals
Mountains – Rocky, Andes
Rivers – Mississippi, Amazon
Bering Strait - Land bridge between the Americas and Asia
First arrivals
From Asia as early as 10,500 B.C.

4. The Development of American Agriculture
Hunters became farmers after large prehistoric animals became extinct
Mammoths
Earliest known farming started in Mexico
Never invented the plow
Led to development of civilizations

5. Cultures of North America

6. Western North America The Northwest The Southwest The Great Plains
Fishing
Weaving
Carving – totem poles
The Southwest
Hohokam people
Irrigation
Beans, corn, and cotton
Adobe
Dried sand bricks
The Great Plains
Used buffalo for food and clothing and teepees

7. The Eastern Woodlands Hopewell were skilled artists
Built burial mounds
Mississippians were successful farmers and traders

9. Mesoamerica and Andean South America

10. Early Civilizations The Olmec (1200 – 400 B.C.)
Southern Mexico
First known major civilization
Few elite, many farmers
Art- Giant carved heads, jade masks
“Rubber people”
Chavin (400 – 200 B.C.)
Andes Mountains- Peru
Few elite, had divine connection

11. The Maya (200 B.C. – 900 A.D.) The Toltec
Developed writing system and calendar
Pictograph and hieroglyphics
Studied astronomy
Built pyramids
Chichen Itza 
The Toltec
Pyramids
Metalworking

12. The Aztec – 1200- 1521 A.D. Settled on Lake Texcoco
Built their capital Tenochtitlan
Warriors who borrowed from cultures they conquered
Farmed using chinampas – mud from bottom of lakes
Defeated by Spaniards (Hernan Cortes) allied with other natives in 1521 AD

13. The Inca – A.D.
Lived in the Andes mountains- Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia
Called the “children of the sun”
Spoke Quechua
Had extensive road and trade network
Brought conquered people into one imperial culture
Conquered by Spaniards and various epidemics
Smallpox, typhus, measles, influenza