1. What happened before anyone wrote it down…

2.  Did not just appear here – they traveled by foot from Asia  They walked across a land and ice bridge called Beringa - connected what is now Russia and Alaska  Migrated down & across North America to what is now GA  Constantly moving in search of food  Nomads

3.  4 prehistoric periods in GA: Paleo, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippians.  Not separate groups of people: different generations of the same race.  Paleo – oldest, evolved, became the Archaic, evolved, became the Woodland, became Mississippians.

4.  Not like dinosaurs - people did not die off…completely.  Period ended in 1732 bc Europeans arrived in North America, met natives.  Prehistoric means “before written history”  Europeans arrived, brought writing with them, ended ‘prehistoric’ times

5.  Lived from 10,000BCE to 8,000BCE.  Paleo means “very old”/“old stone”  Paleo Indians ate large animals like mammoths, bison, mastodons, giant sloth  Nomads, moved to follow their food. They lived outside in groups  They used knives and spear points made of rocks, invented a spear throwing device known as the “atlatl”

6.  Lived from 8,000BCE to 1,000BCE  Archaic means “old”  Tried to eat large animals, were becoming extinct, forced to hunt small animals: deer, bear, turkey, bird and fish  End of this period - planting crops to eat  Eating a lot of shellfish from the coast

7.  Earliest Archaic people moved around, lived in temporary shelters, by 1000BCE, starting to live in small “camps” with more permanent shelters  Used more developed spears and atlatls, first group to show evidence of axes  First to use farming, axes & POTTERY!

8.  Lived from 1,000 BCE to 1,000 CE  Ate fish, small game & nuts & berries  Lived in actual tribes and villages, first to create actual “homes” or permanent shelters.  Made highly developed pottery that could be used not just for storage but also for cooking.

9.  Continued to use spears, developed the BOW and ARROW, made hunting easier  Showed many signs of religious rituals, buried dead with trinkets indicating a belief in the afterlife  THEY WERE MOUND BUILDERS

10.  Lived from about 1000 CE to 1600’s  Ate mostly things they grew, farmers  Lived in large villages with distinct features.  Had moats & palisades for defense from other tribes.  Special homes for their chief & places for religious ceremonies.

11.  Built mounds, lots of mounds  Created farming tools out of bone & stone  First organized religious practices  In 1600 CE, left many of the villages in GA…where did they go??

12.  Ended with arrival of Europeans  Hernando de Soto, the 1 st European explorer to explore GA’s interior, who first met, wrote about & killed our prehistoric natives