Into the Americas: Feraterrae, the Wild Land

Into the Americas: Feraterrae, the Wild Land
1. A drop of global sea level from about to about 380 feet lower than present-day levels, commencing around 30,000 years BP (before the present), caused the presence of the land bridge called Beringia to appear as a durable and extensive geographic feature connecting Siberia with Alaska. It was nearly 1000 miles wide and consisted of ‘Mammoth Steppe.’ With the rise of sea level after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Beringian land bridge again became submerged. Estimates of the final re-submergence of the land bridge based purely on present depth of the Bering Strait and eustatic sea level curve place the event around 11,000 years BP. Beyond the land bridge in Alaska herb tundra replaced boreal forest and shrub steppe going into the LGM. Notes from ‘Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas’ Current coalescent estimates based on variation in extant mtDNA lineages set the event at 25 to 20 ka (4) or less than 20 ka (23), after the last glacial maximum (LGM), and estimates based on Ychromosome variability suggest that divergence occurred after 22.5 ka, possibly as late as 20 to 15 ka. All major Native American mtDNA and Ychromosome haplogroups emerged in the same region of central Asia, and all share similar coalescent dates, indicating that a single ancient gene pool is ancestral to all Native American populations. When humans arrived in arctic Siberia at Yana RHS 32 ka, contracted ice sheets left wide-open corridors through which humans could have passed, but by 24 ka the ice sheets had grown sufficiently to clog both passageways....the coastal corridor appears to have become deglaciated and open to human habitation by at least 15 ka, whereas the interior corridor may not have opened until 14 to 13.5 ka. The archaeological records of both corridors are still inadequate for addressing questions about the initial peopling of the Americas; however, the presence of human remains dating to 13.1 to 13 ka at Arlington Springs, on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of California, indicates that the first Americans used watercraft. Discussion of the early archaeological record south of the Canadian ice sheets starts with Clovis, the bestdocumented early complex in the Americas. Radiocarbon dates obtained over the last 40 years from Clovis sites across North America suggested that the complex ranged in age from 13.6 to 13 ka. At least 12 unequivocal Clovis proboscidean kill and butchery sites are known, an unusually high number for such a short period of time, given that there are only six proboscidean kill sites for the entire Eurasian Upper Paleolithic. In most areas of North America, Clovis people hunted mammoth and mastodon regularly, and they likely played some role in their extinction. Since the discovery and definition of Clovis, researchers have searched for evidence of an even older occupation of the Americas.....Perhaps the best candidate is the Monte Verde site (Chile), which contains clear artifacts dated to 14.6 ka. Its acceptance by most archaeologists means synchronous and possibly earlier sites should exist in North America. A few localities dating between 15 and 14 ka now seem to provide compelling evidence of an occupation before Clovis. In the northern United States, the Schaefer and Hebior sites (Wisconsin) provide strong evidence of human proboscidean hunting or scavenging near the margin of the Laurentide ice sheet between 14.8 and 14.2 ka. Three other sites—Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania), Page-Ladson (Florida), and Paisley Cave (Oregon)—may provide additional evidence of humans in North America by about 14.6 ka. At Meadowcroft Rockshelter, artifacts occur in sediments that may be as old as 22 to 18 ka, but it is the record post-dating 15.2 ka that is especially interesting. This is the uppermost layer of lower stratum IIa, which produced a small lanceolate biface and is bracketed by dates of 15.2 and 13.4 ka. Acceptance of the site, however, hinges on resolution of dating issues At Page-Ladson, early materials occur in a buried geologic context within a sinkhole that is now submerged by the Aucilla River. Seven pieces of chert debitage, one expedient unifacial flake tool, and a possible hammerstone were associated with extinct faunal remains, including a mastodon tusk with six deep grooves at the point where the tusk emerged from the alveolus of the cranium. These grooves are interpreted to have been made by humans as the tusk was removed from its socket. Seven 14C dates for this horizon average about 14.4 ka, which suggests human occupation of the sinkhole during the late Pleistocene when the water table was lower than it is today. Page-Ladson may contain evidence of pre-Clovis humans, but, despite extensive reporting on the site, more details on artifact contexts and site formation processes are needed to permit objective evaluation of the record. At Paisley Cave, three human coprolites are directly 14C dated to about 14.1 ka. The human origin of the coprolites is supported by ancient mtDNA analyses that showed they contained haplogroups A and B, but a complete report is not yet available. The evidence for humans in the Americas even earlier than 15 ka is less secure, but recently has been presented for four sites: Cactus Hill (Virginia), La Sena (Nebraska), Lovewell (Kansas), and Topper (South Carolina). Currently, the oldest claim for occupation of North America is at the Topper site, located on a Pleistocene terrace overlooking the Savannah River. Clovis artifacts at Topper are found at the base of a colluvial deposit, and older artifacts are reported in underlying sandy alluvial sediments dated to about 15 ka. Given that the assemblage was not produced through conventional Paleolithic technologies and that the putative artifacts could have been produced through natural processes (specifically thermal spalling), evaluation of this site must await a complete lithic analysis. Summary of Sorts The most parsimonious explanation of the available genetic, archaeological, and environmental evidence is that humans colonized the Americas around 15 ka, immediately after deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor. Monte Verde, Schaefer, and Hebior point to a human presence in the Americas by 14.6 ka. Human occupations at Meadowcroft, Page-Ladson, and Paisley Cave also appear to date to this time. Together these sites may represent the new basal stratum of American prehistory, one that could have given rise to Clovis. The first Americans used boats, and the coastal corridor would have been the likely route of passage since the interior corridor appears to have remained closed for at least another 1000 years. Once humans reached the Pacific Northwest, they could have continued their spread southward along the coast to Chile, as well as eastward along the southern margin of the continental ice sheets, possibly following traces of mammoth and mastodon to Wisconsin. The peopling of the Americas debate is far from resolved.

Extent of continental ice sheet at glacial maximum
Corridor closed by 21,000-25,000 ya Opened 12,000 ya? Coastal glaciers retreat ~19,000 ya Jce free by ya 2. The onset of the LGM after 30,000 years BP saw expansion of alpine glaciers and continental ice sheets that blocked migration routes out of Beringia. By 21,000 years BP, and possibly thousands of years earlier, the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets coalesced east of the Rocky Mountains, closing off a potential migration route into the center of North America. Coastal alpine glaciers started to retreat around 19k (19,000) years BP while Cordilleran ice continued advancing in the Puget lowlands up to 14k years BP. As deglaciation occurred, refugia expanded until the coast became ice-free by 15k cal years (calendar years, somewhat different than radiocarbon dated years) BP. Retreat of glaciers on the Alaskan Peninsula provided access from Beringia to the Pacific coast by around 17k cal years BP. The ice barrier between interior Alaska and the Pacific coast broke up starting around 14 cal years BP. The ice-free corridor to interior North America opened between 13k and 12k cal years BP. Glaciation in eastern Siberia during the LGM was limited to alpine and valley glaciers in mountain ranges and did not block access between Siberia and Beringia. Lots of change: Pollen data indicate a warm period culminating between 17k-13k cal years BP) followed by cooling between 13k-11.5k cal years BP). Coastal areas deglaciated rapidly as coastal alpine glaciers, then lobes of Cordilleran ice, retreated. Littoral marine organisms colonized shorelines as ocean water replaced glacial meltwater. Replacement of herb/shrub tundra by coniferous forests was underway by15k cal years BP north of Haida Gwaii. Extent of continental ice sheet at glacial maximum

Humans into Asia, Beringia, and North America
3. The Yana River Rhino Horn Site (RHS) has dated human occupation of eastern Arctic Siberia to 31.3k cal years BP. The early date for humans at that location has been interpreted by some as evidence that migration into Beringia was imminent, lending credence to occupation of Beringia during the LGM. However, the Yana RHS date is from the beginning of the cooling period that led into the LGM. A compilation of archaeosite dates throughout eastern Siberia is suggestive that the cooling period caused a retreat of humans towards southern refugia. Pre-LGM lithic assemblages in Siberia indicate a geographically restricted lifestyle based on utilizing local resources, while post-LGM lithic assemblages indicate a more migratory lifestyle The oldest archaeosite dates on the Alaskan side of Beringia are around 14k cal years BP). That does not preclude that a small founder population had entered Beringia before that time and that the appearance of an archaeological trace reflects population expansion rather than earliest migration. However, in the absence of dated archaeosites closer to the LGM on either the Siberian or the Alaskan side of Beringia, convincing evidence of pre-LGM migration into Beringia is lacking. One current model (image above) proposes that migration into Beringia occurred approximately 36k cal years BP, followed by 20k years of isolation in Beringia, with entry into Alaska about 20 ka. Humans into Asia, Beringia, and North America

Early human migration- out of Africa 60,000 years ago
4. It was long thought at the first migrants south of the ice traveled in the corridor between the continental glaciers, but it is now thought more likely that the first people traveled down the coast. The boat-builders from Southeast Asia may have been one of the earliest groups to reach the shores of North America. One theory suggests people in boats followed the coastline from the Kurile Islands to Alaska down the coasts of North and South America as far as Chile. The Haida nation on the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia may have originated from these early Asian mariners between 25,000 and 12,000. Early watercraft migration would also explain the habitation of coastal sites in South America such as Pikimachay Cave in Peru by 20,000 years ago (dispute, and ’12,000 BCE seems more likely’) and Monte Verde in Chile by 14,800 years ago. 'There was boat use in Japan 20,000 years ago,' says Jon Erlandson, a University of Oregon anthropologist. 'The Kurile Islands (north of Japan) are like stepping stones to Beringia,' the then continuous land bridging the Bering Strait. Migrants, he said, could have then skirted the tidewater glaciers in Canada right on down the coast." While the mainstream of the archaeological community is in general agreement that the Americas were settled by migrants sourced from northeastern Asian populations, uncertainties remain as to the chronology of the migrations, the source populations that contributed to the migrations, and the migration routes. The uncertainty is fed by a lack of archaeological evidence along migration routes dating to the periods when migrations are proposed to have occurred; uncertainties in the dating and interpretation of the oldest proposed archaeosites in the Americas; and uncertainties of assumptions underlying chronological and source models of migration derived from studies of modern Native American genetics. Early human migration- out of Africa 60,000 years ago

Post-glacial outwash- what the corridor would have looked like
5. The inland Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets retreated more slowly than did the coastal glaciers. Opening of an ice-free corridor did not occur until after 13k to 12k cal years BP. The early environment of the ice-fee corridor was dominated by glacial outwash and meltwater, with ice-dammed lakes and periodic flooding from the release of ice-dammed meltwater. Biological productivity of the deglaciated landscape was gained slowly. The earliest possible viability of the ice-free corridor as a human migration route has been estimated at 11.5k cal years BP Post-glacial outwash- what the corridor would have looked like

Earliest paleo-human sites in the Americas
14,300 ya 16,000+ ya Topper (S. Carolina) 16,000+ ya 6. Location of some of the more famous paleohuman sites in the United States. Paisley Caves are four caves in south-central Oregon. DNA from fossilized human coprolites have been radiocarbon dated to 14,300 years ago, one of the oldest definitively-dated human presence in North America. Meadowcroft is in Pennsylvania dating from 14,000 to 19,000 ya. Monte Verde is in Southern Chile and dates to 14,800 ya. Notes: In the northern U.S., the Schaefer and Hebior sites (Wisconsin) provide strong evidence of human proboscidean hunting or scavenging near the margin of the Laurentide ice sheet between 14.2 and 14.8 ka. At each site, disarticulated remains of a single mammoth were sealed in pond clay and associated with unequivocal stone artifacts. The bones bear consistent signs of butchering-cut and pry marks made by stone tools. Critics suggest that the bone breakage and surface marring is the result of natural processes; however, it is difficult to reject the evidence from these sites because of the consistent patterning of the marks, low-energy depositional context, and associated stone tools. Even earlier evidence of humans in Wisconsin is suggested by the cut and pry marks on the lower limb bones of a mammoth recovered from Mud Lake. These bones date to 16 ka, but stone tools are absent. Three other sites-Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania), Page-Ladson (Florida), and Paisley Cave (Oregon)-may provide additional evidence of humans in North America by about 14.6 ka, but these sites have unresolved issues. At Meadowcroft Rockshelter, artifacts occur in sediments that may be as old as 18 to 22 ka. The assemblage includes about 700 pieces, including a small lanceolate biface from the upper part of stratum IIa, which is specifically bracketed by dates of 13.4 and 15.1 ka. Objective review and unequivocal acceptance of the site, however, hinges upon resolution of dating issues and publication of a comprehensive report of the excavations. At Page-Ladson, early materials occur in a buried, submerged context in a sinkhole within the Aucilla River. Seven pieces of chert debitage, one expedient unifacial flake tool, and a possible hammerstone occurred in association with extinct faunal remains, including a mastodon tusk with six deep grooves at the point were the tusk emerged from the alveolus of the cranium. These grooves are interpreted to have been made by humans as the tusk was removed from its socket. Seven 14C dates for this horizon average about 14.4 ka, suggesting human occupation of the sinkhole occurred during the late Pleistocene when the area's water table was lower than it is today. Page-Ladson may contain evidence of Pre-Clovis humans, but a lack of detailed reporting about artifact contexts and site formation processes at the site prevent definitive evaluation. At Paisley Cave, three human coprolites are directly 14C dated to about 14.1 ka. The human origin of the coprolites is supported by ancient mtDNA analyses that showed they contained haplogroups A and B, but a complete report on these genetic studies as well as the stratigraphic and archaeological context of the coprolites is not yet available. Given the evidence of mixing in the cave's late-Pleistocene deposits, it is not possible to evaluate this evidence until it is fully reported. More on Paisley: Stone tools and fire features are always great indicators of human activity at an archaeological site. And human bones are the best evidence excavators can hope to find. But humans also leave behind coprolites, or fossilized feces. Thanks to the extremely dry environment inside Oregon’s Paisley Caves, University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins and his team came across five human droppings that dated to older than 14,000 years over the course of nine years of digging there. In addition, they also found three points that Jenkins believes belong to what is known as the Western Stemmed tradition. Unlike Clovis points, which have a signature notch at their base so that wooden spears can be attached, these have constricted bases. They have also clearly been struck from smaller pieces of stone than the typical Clovis counterpart. Two human coprolites dated to just over 13,000 years ago were found within eight inches of one of the points. At the very least, this evidence suggests that there was a parallel occupation of the continental United States by both the Clovis people and a second group who made different types of tools. Evidence of baskets and rope, plant fibers, wooden artifacts, and animal bones were also found at the caves. Pollen and other plant minerals extracted from the coprolites suggest that people came to the site in the spring and early summer. They also provide evidence that the people in the caves ate everything from edible roots to bison, horse, and even animals as big as mastodon. Jenkins, for his part, thinks Paisley Caves were not a destination location. “There is very little debitage [residue from production] from stone tools over time,” he explains. “The archaeology suggests this is a place where people are passing by—something, weather or resources nearby, or the time of day, makes you stop in.” The evidence for humans in the Americas even earlier than 15 ka is less secure, but recently has been presented for four sites: Cactus Hill (Virginia), La Sena (Nebraska), Lovewell (Kansas), and Topper (South Carolina). Cactus Hill is a sand-dune site with late prehistoric, Archaic, and Clovis levels. Potentially older artifacts, including small prismatic blade cores, blades, and two basally thinned bifacial points were recovered cm below the Clovis level. Three 14C dates ranging from 18 to 20 ka are reported from the levels below Clovis, but there are also dates of 10.3 ka and later. Charcoal samples were not recovered from hearth features, but occur as isolated fragments at the same level as the artifacts. The younger charcoal clearly indicates some bioturbation at the site, and the older charcoal could be derived from older sediments underlying the cultural layer, but luminescence dates on the aeolian sands correlate with the 14C results and indicate minimal mixing of the sediments. Even though much information has yet to be published about this site, one thing seems clear-a biface and blade assemblage appears stratigraphically below the site's Clovis assemblage. An even older occupation of the Americas has been proposed based on taphonomically altered mammoth bones at the La Sena and Lovewell sites that date from 19 to 22 ka. Neither site has yielded stone tools or evidence of butchering; however, many of the leg bones display percussion impact and flaking, suggesting that they were quarried and flaked by humans while they were in a fresh, green state, within a few years of the death of the animals. Clovis people periodically flaked bone in this fashion, as did Upper Paleolithic Beringians; however, in those contexts humans left behind stone tools, whereas at La Sena and Lovewell stone tools remain absent. Currently, the oldest claim for occupation of North America is made at the Topper site, located on a Pleistocene terrace overlooking the Savannah River. Clovis artifacts at Topper are found at the base of a colluvial deposit, and older artifacts are reported to occur in underlying sandy alluvial sediments dated to about 15 ka. The oldest assemblage is a smashed core and microlithic industry. Cores and their removals show no negative bulbs, and flakes and spalls were modified into small unifacial tools and "bend-break tools" possibly used for working wood or bone. In 2004, similar-looking material was found in older alluvial deposits dating in excess of 50 ka. Given that the assemblage was not produced through conventional Paleolithic technologies, and that the putative artifacts could have been produced through natural processes, specifically thermal spalling, evaluation of this site must await complete reporting. Current molecular evidence implies that members of a single population left Siberia and headed east to the Americas sometime between 30 and 13 ka. The majority of studies suggest this event occurred after the LGM, less than 22 ka. Initial analysis of mtDNA haplogroup sub-clades further suggests humans spread south from Beringia after 16.6 ka. The genetic record has not revealed multiple late-Pleistocene migrations, but does distinguish a Holocene dispersal of Eskimo-Aleuts from northeast Asia. The archaeological record provides more clues about when the Americas were colonized. Humans occupied western Beringia by 32 ka, but the earliest unequivocal occupation of eastern Beringia is 14 ka. South of the continental ice sheets is Clovis, which first appears ka, and Monte Verde, Schaefer, and Hebior, which point to a human presence in the Americas by 14.6 ka. Human occupations at Meadowcroft, Page-Ladson, and Paisley Cave may also date to this time, but all have shortcomings in reporting. Together these sites may represent the new basal stratum of American prehistory, one that could have given rise to Clovis. Other sites like Cactus Hill and La Sena may be even older, but issues related to their formation need to be clarified before they can be accepted as incontrovertible proof of an early human presence in the Americas. Humans likely colonized the Americas around 15 ka, immediately upon deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor. Most mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroup coalescence estimates predict such an event, and it may correlate to the post-LGM dispersal of microblade-producing populations into northern Siberia and their eventual appearance in Beringia during the late glacial. The first Americans did use boats, as the evidence from the Channel Islands, California, attests. Once reaching the Pacific Northwest, humans could have continued their spread southward along the coast to Chile, as well as eastward along the southern margin of the continental ice sheets, possibly following traces of mammoth and mastodon to Wisconsin. Clovis could have originated south of the continental ice sheets, and the dense Clovis quarry-campsites in the southeastern U.S. may be the result of a longer time-depth there than in other regions. Alternatively, Clovis could have originated in the north, as part of a second dispersal event from Beringia to America as the interior "ice-free" corridor opened, 13.5 ka. To us, this model offers the most parsimonious explanation of the evidence at hand today. It is compatible with the emerging genetic and archaeological records-the re-dating of Clovis, the contemporaneity of fluted-point complexes in North and South America, and the presence of Pre-Clovis sites south of the Canadian ice sheets. Perhaps humans colonized the Americas even earlier, before the LGM, by 24 ka. There is clear evidence to show that people were capable of surviving in arctic western Beringia by 32 ka, and the Canadian ice sheets do not appear to have coalesced until 24 ka. To prove a pre-LGM dispersal event, unequivocal archaeological sites predating the opening of the Pacific coastal corridor (15 ka) are required in the Americas, and so far no such sites have been found. Further, current genetic estimates imply that the dispersal of modern humans from Beringia to the Americas occurred after the LGM. Schaefer and Hebior Kill Sites In 1964, while draining a marshy field on the Schaefer Farm, an hour north of Chicago, an earthmover jolted to a halt when it struck a buried mammoth femur, throwing its operator from his seat. The mammoth remains would end up in the nearby Kenosha Public Museum. More than 20 years later, an amateur archaeologist noticed cut marks on another set of mammoth bones in the museum’s collection, indicating they had been butchered. That prompted archaeologist Dan Joyce, the museum’s director, to reinvestigate the Schaefer site. Beginning his excavations in 1992, he found, under two-and-a-half feet of ancient soils, roughly 80 percent of a completely butchered mammoth. Because the animal had been inundated by the waters of a long-dried-up lake shortly after it was butchered, its bones were well preserved. Many bore V-shaped cut marks typical of what would be made by humans using prehistoric tools. Joyce also found fragments of two stone blades with the remains. Preliminary dating says the bones are roughly 13,000 years old. “We had a Clovis date, so we thought we had a Clovis site,” Joyce says. But when the bones were redated the next year using a more sophisticated technique that purified the collagen protein in them, that assessment went out the window. The new dates came back clustered around 14,500 years ago. If the analysis wasn’t enough to convince Joyce, what was found three-quarters of a mile away at the Hebior Farm confirmed it. There, in 1994, a team led by David Overstreet, an archaeologist at Marquette University in Milwaukee, found 90 percent of a similarly butchered mammoth, along with a more complete set of butchering tools. The bones from Hebior would be dated to 150 to 200 years before the Schaefer bones. “Both Schaefer and Hebior are pre-Clovis, but they’re a Clovis subsistence style, so they’re almost bridging the gap,” says Joyce, referring to the Clovis people’s reputation as hunters of mammoths, bison, and other big game. “Are they more properly called ‘proto-Clovis,’ something that develops into Clovis?” Topper is an archaeological site located along the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina, United States. It is noted as a location of controversial artifacts believed by some archaeologists to indicate human habitation of the New World earlier than the Clovis culture, previously believed to be the first people in North America. Artifacts at this site may predate Clovis by 3,000 years or more. The primary excavation has gone down to a level that dates to at least 50,000 B.C., searching for evidence of cultural artifacts. Until increasing challenges in the first decade of the 21st century to the Clovis theory based on this site and others, it was unusual for archaeologists to dig deeper than the layer of the Clovis culture, as they then believed that no human artifacts would be found older than Clovis. Among the objects from the "pre-Clovis" stratum dated to 16,000-20,000 years BP, is a large piece nicknamed the "Topper Chopper", which offers some of the most compelling evidence for human agency, including bifacial flaking of the edge. In 2004, Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina announced that carbonized plant remains, found as a dark stain in the light soil at the lowest excavated level at the Topper Site, had been radiocarbon dated to approximately 50,000 years ago, or approximately 37,000 years before the Clovis people. Goodyear, who began excavating the Topper site in the 1980s, believes that lithic objects at that level are rudimentary stone tools (and thus "artifacts"). Other archaeologists dispute this conclusion, suggesting that the objects are natural and not human-made. Other archaeologists also have challenged the radiocarbon dating of the carbonized remains at Topper, arguing that 1) the stain represented the result of a natural fire, and 2) 50,000 years is the theoretical upper limit of effective radiocarbon dating, meaning that the stratum is radiocarbon dead, rather than dating to that time period. Goodyear discovered the objects by digging 4 meters deeper than the Clovis artifacts readily found at the site. Before discovering the oldest lithics, he had discovered other objects which he claimed were tools dating around 16,000 years old, or about 3,000 years before Clovis. This assertion of 3,000 years is a much more likely and plausible number than the upper limit of radiocarbon dating. Evidence predating Clovis culture by a few thousand years is popularly termed as the "pioneer" stage of Clovis culture.[3] This would be the birth of the culture and the start of the tool set. Researchers agree that the lack of evidence would stem from the lack of materials at hand. New techniques would take time to spread. The pioneer hypothesis allows for tools to predate by centuries rather than millennia. 14,800 ya Earliest paleo-human sites in the Americas

Concept of Monte Verde in Chile 14,800 years ago
7. The Meadowcroft Rockshelter site at 14,000 yo or older and the Monte Verde site in southern Chile, with a date of 14,800 cal years BP, are the archaeosites in the Americas with the oldest dates that have gained broad acceptance. These sites add to the evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but in recent years the evidence has become more widely accepted in some archaeological circles, although vocal "Clovis First" advocates remain. Coastal migration is a widely accepted model explaining how inhabitants arrived at Monte Verde. Archaeological evidence shows that people arrived at Monte Verde about 1,800 years before the time that the Bering Land Bridge between Alaska and Siberia would have become impassable in 13,000 BP. Peoples traveling down the western coast of the Americas appears to be the most plausible explanation for the earliest inhabitants of Chile. Paleoecological evidence of the coastal landscape's ability to sustain human life further supports this model. However, as of 2009 no archaeological evidence has been found of pre-Clovis humans using a coastal migration route. Monte Verde is one of the rare open-air prehistoric sites found so far in the Americas, Monte Verde was well preserved because it was located in an anaerobic bog environment near the creek. In the initial excavation, two large hearths were found and many small ones as well. The remains of local animals were found, in addition to wooden posts from approximately twelve huts. Scraps of clothing made of hide were also found. This led archaeologists to estimate the population was around inhabitants. A human footprint was also found in the clay, probably from a child. Inside the camp, archaeologists found a chunk of meat that still had preserved DNA. After a DNA analysis, it matched that of a mastodon, indicating the type of food the inhabitants ate. The early date for the site was not widely accepted until It had hitherto been generally agreed that ancient people had entered the Americas using the Bering Strait Land Bridge, which was about 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) north of the Monte Verde site. A group of 12 respected archaeologists revisited the site in 1997 and concluded that Monte Verde was an inhabited site and predated the Clovis culture. One of Tom Dillehay’s colleagues, Dr. Mario Pino, claimed a lower layer of the site is 33,200 years old, based on the discovery of burned wood several hundred feet to the south of Monte Verde. Radiocarbon dating established the wood as 33,000 years old. Dillehay was cautious of this earlier date, and as of 2007 it has not been verified nor accepted by the scientific community. Previously, the earliest accepted site had been determined to be near Clovis, New Mexico, dating between 13,500-13,000 BP, over 1,000 years later than Monte Verde. The new dates supplied by Monte Verde have made the site a key factor in the debate over the first migration route from Asia to North America. Before the discovery of Monte Verde, the most popular and widely accepted theory was the overland route, which speculates that the first American inhabitants migrated from Asia across the Bering Strait and then spread throughout North America. Meadowcroft Rockshelter is a natural formation beneath an overhanging cliff in Washington County Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg. Radiocarbon dating of the site indicated occupancy beginning 16,000 years ago and possibly as early as 19,000 years ago. The dates are still controversial, with a recent survey carried out by the Society for American Archaeology reported support from 38% of archaeologists, with 20% rejecting the early dates. Criticism of these early radiocarbon dates has focused on the potential for contamination by ancient carbon from coal-bearing strata in the watershed. The samples, tested by an independent third party geomorphologist, concluded that the samples showed no evidence of groundwater activity. Tests performed via accelerator mass spectrometry also support the earlier dates. If authentic, these dates would indicate that Meadowcroft was used in the pre-Clovis era and, as such, provides evidence for very early human habitation of the Americas. Meadowcroft Rockshelter may be the oldest known site of human habitation in North America, providing a unique glimpse into the lives of prehistoric hunters and gatherers. Paleoindian, Archaic, and Woodland remains have all been found at the site. Evidence shows that people gathered smaller game animals as well as plants, such as corn (in more recent history), squash, fruits, nuts and seeds. Remains of flint from Ohio, jasper from eastern Pennsylvania and marine shells from the Atlantic coast suggest that the people inhabiting the area were mobile and involved in long-distance trade. At least one basin-shaped hearth was reused over time. Concept of Monte Verde in Chile 14,800 years ago

Three major migrations into North America
8. The people we know as Native Americans actually arrived at the continent in three separate great migrations in the distant past. Most Native Americans are descended from a small group of migrants that crossed a 'land bridge' between Asia and America during the ice ages 15,000 years ago. These migrants, known as the 'First Americans', populated most of North and South America. But there were two subsequent migrations across the same bridge - and DNA from the second and third groups can still be found in Native Americans today. The second and third migrations have left an impact only in Arctic populations that speak Eskimo-Aleut languages and in the Canadian Chipewyan who speak a Na-Dene language. Eskimos show the most differences, with a mere 50% of their DNA coming from the 'First Americans'. All the groups originally came from Siberia. The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit unique haplogroup mutations, distinct from other indigenous Amerindians. This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations. Na-Dene includes Athabaskan and Tlingit languages. One intriguing theory is that Na-Dene is related to Yeniseian spoken along the Yenisia River in Siberia, and that they both arose in Beringia, which existed from about 19,000-12,000 ya. As the map indicates, Navajos and Apaches speak a language derived from Na-Dene. Three major migrations into North America

9. Early Paleo-Indians soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. Paleo-Indian adaptation across North America was likely characterized by small, highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family. These groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. Paleo-Indian groups were efficient hunters and carried a variety of tools. These included highly efficient projectile points/knives, as well as less distinctive implements used for butchering and hide processing. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct megafauna such as mastodon and Bison antiquus. A widespread lithic technology characterized by spear points with an indentation, or flute, where the point was attached to the shaft identified over much of North America and in South America became known as Clovis technology because the first points were found at a kill site near Clovis New Mexico. The association of Clovis complex technology with late Pleistocene faunal remains led to the theory that it marked the arrival of big game hunters that migrated out of Beringia then dispersed throughout the Americas, otherwise known as the Clovis First theory. The East Wenatchee Clovis Site is a deposit of prehistoric Clovis points and other implements, dating to about 13,000 calendar years before present, found near the city of East Wenatchee, Washington in The tool kit manufactured by the Clovis culture is one of the earliest known in the Americas, persisting from about 13,000 to 12,600 radiocarbon years BP. Volcanic ash from under the artifacts was dated at 13,200 years ago. The East Wenatchee Clovis Site yielded 36 ancient stone tools and 13 transversely beveled rods of carved and in some cases incised mammoth or mastodon bone (the largest being 11”). The best hypothesis is that these bone rods were likely foreshafts to mount stone points to wood shafts. The cache held the largest Clovis points then known to science, one of them 9.15 inches long, knapped from white agate (also called chalcedony). Most of the rock is high grade obsidian and agate from Oregon. Before this discovery the largest Clovis points were only measured at around 6 inches. Researchers postulated that the cache might have represented a large habitation camp; a hunting toolkit, buried and then dug up for seasonal stalking of game or a ceremonial or funeral site. Clovis artifacts are extremely rare in the Northwest, and this site boasts several "firsts". This was the first Clovis cache to be found in situ; two of the Clovis points are the largest and finest Clovis points known; and the bone rods (13 were found) are almost unheard of outside those found in the Florida rivers, because of degradation. All the fluted point from the pit feature at the East Wenatchee Clovis site bear blood residues along cutting edges, suggesting use as knives or cleavers. Positive reactions were obtained for bison, deer family (caribou, deer, moose), and lagomorphs (hares and rabbits). Human blood was also detected on the largest fluted point where a handle would have been. The bone rods are from the dense, hind leg bone of mammoth or mastodon. Their average length is 25 cm. Both ends were carefully beveled by grinding, and the flat faces of these bevels have been roughened by scratching—perhaps for secure hafting. Decorated Clovis artifacts are exceedingly rare and until now were only known from derived, secondary contexts. The function of the bi-beveled bone rods can only be guessed. It is notable that the rods are paired by size. The existence of the Richey Cache implies that hunters abandoned the East Wenatchee site but expected to return in the near future, perhaps after a season. The bison blood on their butchering tools indicates that during some period of their annual round, the Clovis group waylaid these formidable creatures. Not surprisingly, the Clovis camp faces one of the easiest routes for reaching the top of the Columbia Plateau. Animals ascending or descending the slope may have been ambushed by waiting hunters. A few mysteries: Viability of the corridor as a human migration route has been estimated at 11.5k cal years BP, later than the ages of the Clovis and pre-Clovis sites. Dated Clovis archaeosites suggest a south-to-north spread of the Clovis culture. The problems associated with finding archaeological evidence for migration during a period of lowered sea level are well known. Sites related to the first migration are usually submerged, so the location of such sites is obscured. Clovis Points

An Indigenous timeline for North America
Lithic 10. The North American climate finally stabilized by 8000 BCE; at which point climatic conditions were very similar to today's. By about 10,000 ya the large megafauna had died out, and hunters turned to smaller prey. This so-called Archaic stage is characterized by subsistence economies supported through the exploitation of nuts, seeds, and shellfish. Numerous local variations have been identified. Groups were still migratory but showed longer durations at given sites, especially those with abundant food resources. Previous to that was the Lithic stage (the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas), An Indigenous timeline for North America

Watson Brake Site in Louisiana 6500 years old
11. The Middle Archaic Period began as early as 4600 BCE, when people in the Lower Mississippi Valley at the Monte Sano site were building complex earthwork mounds to express their religious ceremonies and social hierarchy. The two mounds marked places where the cremation of select individuals had taken place. This is the earliest dated mound of numerous sites of mound complexes found in present-day Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, thousands of years before the construction of pyramids in Egypt. Since the late twentieth century, archeologists have explored and dated these sites. They have found that they were built by hunter-gatherer societies, whose people occupied the sites on a seasonal basis, and who had not yet developed agriculture or ceramics. Watson Brake, a large complex of eleven platform mounds, was constructed beginning in 4500 BCE and added to over 500 years. This has changed earlier assumptions that complex construction arose only after societies had adopted agriculture, become sedentary, often developed stratified hierarchy, and generally also developed ceramics. These ancient people had organized to build complex mound projects from a different basis. One theory is that the site was a location where many migratory bands met annually or seasonally to trade, find potential mates and socialize. The analysis of 27 radiocarbon dates indicates that the site was initially occupied around 4000 BCE during the Middle Archaic period. Mound construction began at approximately 3500 BCE, and continued for approximately 500 years. During that time period, the mounds were enlarged in several stages. Excavations indicate that there was sufficient time between building episodes for midden deposits of residents to accumulate on top of the mounds and ridges. Evidence of the middens indicate that Watson Brake may have been used as a "base by mobile hunter-gatherers from summer through fall. Midden remains showed the population relied on fish, shellfish, and riverine animals, supplemented by local annuals: goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri), knotweed (Polygonum spp.), and possibly marshelder (Iva annua). Over time, there was an increasing consumption of terrestrial animals, such as deer, turkey, raccoon, opossum, squirrel, and rabbits, which was likely related to changing habitat and waterway conditions. The site appears to have been abandoned around 2800 BCE. This may have been caused by a decline in the main channel, gravel/sand shoal habitats, backwater swamps, and small-stream habitats near the site. Together with other Middle Archaic sites in Louisiana and Florida, Watson Brake shows the development of complex societies among hunter-gatherer peoples, who occupied the site seasonally but were capable of planning and organizing complex monumental construction over a period of several hundred years. In contrast to Poverty Point, where its residents made projectile points with materials traded from distant locations, including Wisconsin and Tennessee, the artifacts of Watson Brake show local materials and production. The projectile points are Middle to Late Archaic in age, and were produced more casually than those at Poverty Point. The people heated local gravel for cooking stones to steam some of their food. They created and fired earthenwares in a variety of shapes, but researchers have not yet determined their functions. A brake or cane brake is a naturally occurring growth of native river cane (Arundinaria gigantea), a cousin of Asian bamboo. Stands of river cane in damp soil can be so dense as to be virtually impassible to humans. In fact, almost all former village sites of the Creek Indians can be identified by the presence of dense cane brakes along horseshoe bends of streams. The cane brakes served as natural walls for small villages and provided raw materials for furniture, arrows, blow dart tubes and water pipes. When dry, river cane is much stronger than Asian bamboo. Thus, the river cane at Watson Brake would have provided a natural defense for the human activities occurring there. Prior to the construction of dams, levees and drainage canals, much of northeastern Louisiana was under water during the annual spring floods. Mounds were typically burial mounds covering ‘bundled burials’- corpses were defleshed and disarticulated with the skeletons later reassembled and tied up in a bundle. Watson Brake Site in Louisiana 6500 years old

12. Göbekli Tepe was built from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals—a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars. The assemblage was built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza. Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known example of monumental architecture—the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut. When these pillars were erected, so far as we know, nothing of comparable scale existed in the world. At the time of Göbekli Tepe's construction much of the human race lived in small nomadic bands that survived by foraging for plants and hunting wild animals. Construction of the site would have required more people coming together in one place than had likely occurred before. Amazingly, the temple's builders were able to cut, shape, and transport 16-ton stones hundreds of feet despite having no wheels or beasts of burden. The pilgrims who came to Göbekli Tepe lived in a world without writing, metal, or pottery; to those approaching the temple from below, its pillars must have loomed overhead like rigid giants, the animals on the stones shivering in the firelight—emissaries from a spiritual world that the human mind may have only begun to envision. At first the Neolithic Revolution was viewed as a single event—a sudden flash of genius—that occurred in a single location, Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now southern Iraq, then spread to India, Europe, and beyond. Most archaeologists believed this sudden blossoming of civilization was driven largely by environmental changes: a gradual warming as the Ice Age ended that allowed some people to begin cultivating plants and herding animals in abundance. The new research suggests that the "revolution" was actually carried out by many hands across a huge area and over thousands of years. And it may have been driven not by the environment but by something else entirely. Geomagnetic surveys in 2003 revealed at least 20 rings of stone pillars close together under the earth. To Schmidt, the T-shaped pillars are stylized human beings, an idea bolstered by the carved arms that angle from the "shoulders" of some pillars, hands reaching toward their loincloth-draped bellies. The stones face the center of the circle—as at "a meeting or dance," Schmidt says—a representation, perhaps, of a religious ritual. As for the prancing, leaping animals on the figures, he noted that they are mostly deadly creatures: stinging scorpions, charging boars, ferocious lions. The figures represented by the pillars may be guarded by them, or appeasing them, or incorporating them as totems. Bewilderingly, the people at Göbekli Tepe got steadily worse at temple building. The earliest rings are the biggest and most sophisticated, technically and artistically. As time went by, the pillars became smaller, simpler, and were mounted with less and less care. Finally the effort seems to have petered out altogether by 8200 B.C. As important as what the researchers found was what they did not find: any sign of habitation. Hundreds of people must have been required to carve and erect the pillars, but the site had no water source—the nearest stream was about three miles away. Those workers would have needed homes, but excavations have uncovered no sign of walls, hearths, or houses—no other buildings that Schmidt has interpreted as domestic. They would have had to be fed, but there is also no trace of agriculture. For that matter, Schmidt has found no mess kitchens or cooking fires. It was purely a ceremonial center. If anyone ever lived at this site, they were less its residents than its staff. To judge by the thousands of gazelle and aurochs bones found at the site, the workers seem to have been fed by constant shipments of game, brought from faraway hunts. All of this complex endeavor must have had organizers and overseers, but there is as yet no good evidence of a social hierarchy—no living area reserved for richer people, no tombs filled with elite goods, no sign of some people having better diets than others. "These people were foragers," Schmidt says, people who gathered plants and hunted wild animals. "Our picture of foragers was always just small, mobile groups, a few dozen people. They cannot make big permanent structures, we thought, because they must move around to follow the resources. They can't maintain a separate class of priests and craft workers, because they can't carry around all the extra supplies to feed them. Then here is Göbekli Tepe, and they obviously did that.“ Discovering that hunter-gatherers had constructed Göbekli Tepe was like finding that someone had built a 747 in a basement with an X-Acto knife. "I, my colleagues, we all thought, What? How?" Schmidt said. In the Levant—the area that today encompasses Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and western Syria—archaeologists had discovered settlements dating as far back as 13,000 B.C. Known as Natufian villages (the name comes from the first of these sites to be found), they sprang up across the Levant as the Ice Age was drawing to a close, ushering in a time when the region's climate became relatively warm and wet. Although the Natufians lived in permanent settlements of up to several hundred people, they were foragers, not farmers, hunting gazelles and gathering wild rye, barley, and wheat. Natufian villages ran into hard times around 10,800 B.C., when regional temperatures abruptly fell some 12°F, part of a mini ice age that lasted 1,200 years and created much drier conditions across the Fertile Crescent. With animal habitat and grain patches shrinking, a number of villages suddenly became too populous for the local food supply. Many people once again became wandering foragers, searching the landscape for remaining food sources. The Natufian sites in the Levant suggest that settlement came first and that farming arose later, as a product of crisis. Confronted with a drying, cooling environment and growing populations, humans in the remaining fecund areas thought, as Bar-Yosef puts it, "If we move, these other folks will exploit our resources. The best way for us to survive is to settle down and exploit our own area." Agriculture followed. öbekli Tepe suggests a reversal of that scenario: The construction of a massive temple by a group of foragers is evidence that organized religion could have come before the rise of agriculture and other aspects of civilization. It suggests that the human impulse to gather for sacred rituals arose as humans shifted from seeing themselves as part of the natural world to seeking mastery over it. When foragers began settling down in villages, they unavoidably created a divide between the human realm—a fixed huddle of homes with hundreds of inhabitants—and the dangerous land beyond the campfire, populated by lethal beasts. Over time, Schmidt believes, the need to acquire sufficient food for those who worked and gathered for ceremonies at Göbekli Tepe may have led to the intensive cultivation of wild cereals and the creation of some of the first domestic strains. Indeed, scientists now believe that one center of agriculture arose in southern Turkey—well within trekking distance of Göbekli Tepe—at exactly the time the temple was at its height. Today the closest known wild ancestors of modern einkorn wheat are found on the slopes of Karaca Dağ, a mountain just 60 miles northeast of Göbekli Tepe. Some of the first evidence for plant domestication comes from Nevalı Çori (pronounced nuh-vah-LUH CHO-ree), a settlement in the mountains scarcely 20 miles away. Like Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori came into existence right after the mini ice age, a time archaeologists describe with the unlovely term Pre-pottery Neolithic (PPN). Nevalı Çori is now inundated by a recently created lake that provides electricity and irrigation water for the region. But before the waters shut down research, archaeologists found T-shaped pillars and animal images much like those Schmidt would later uncover at Göbekli Tepe. Similar pillars and images occurred in PPN settlements up to a hundred miles from Göbekli Tepe. Much as one can surmise today that homes with images of the Virgin Mary belong to Christians, Schmidt says, the imagery in these PPN sites indicates a shared religion—a community of faith that surrounded Göbekli Tepe and may have been the world's first truly large religious grouping. Klaus Schmidt noted, "Twenty years ago everyone believed civilization was driven by ecological forces; I think what we are learning is that civilization is a product of the human mind."

13. Late Archaic Period- Until the accurate dating of Watson Brake and similar sites, the oldest mound complex was thought to be Poverty Point, also located in the Lower Mississippi Valley in Louisiana. Built about 3500 years ago, it is the centerpiece of a culture extending over 100 sites on both sides of the Mississippi. The Poverty Point site has earthworks in the form of six concentric half-circles, divided by radial aisles, together with some mounds. The entire complex is nearly a mile across. Mound building was continued by succeeding cultures, who built numerous sites in the middle Mississippi and Ohio River valleys as well, adding effigy mounds, conical and ridge mounds and other shapes. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics. (‘Little Bear’ shown in powerpoint is a drilled bead.)

Paleo-Archaic-Woodland-Mississippian Periods
14. The Woodland Period of North American pre-Columbian cultures refers to the time period from roughly 3000 to 1000 years ago in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland" was coined in the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites between the Archaic period and the Mississippian cultures. The Adena culture (3000 ya to 2000 ya) and the ensuing Hopewell tradition (2200 ya to 1300 ya) during this period built monumental earthwork architecture and established continent-spanning trade and exchange networks. This period is considered a developmental stage without any massive changes in a short period, but instead having a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leather working, textile manufacture, tool production, cultivation, and shelter construction. Some Woodland peoples continued to use spears and atlatls until the end of the period, when they were replaced by bows and arrows. The Hopewell culture built monuments from present-day Illinois to Ohio; it is renowned for its geometric earthworks. The Adena and Hopewell were not the only mound-building peoples during this time period. There were contemporaneous mound-building cultures throughout the Eastern United States, stretching as far south as Western Florida. The most striking Hopewell sites contain earthworks in the form of squares, circles, and other geometric shapes. Many of these sites were built to a monumental scale, with earthen walls up to 12 feet high outlining geometric figures more than 1000 feet across. Conical and loaf-shaped earthen mounds up to 30 feet high are often found in association with the geometric earthworks. There are over 10,000 earthworks in the Ohio Valley. The Spiro Mounds are a Mississippian site in eastern Oklahoma belonging to the Caddo Tribe or Nation, which is the tribe Dayton Edmonds is from. The Caddo Indians were farming people. Caddo women harvested crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and sunflowers. Caddo men hunted for deer, buffalo, and small game and went fishing in the rivers. Traditional Caddo foods included cornbread, soups, and stews. The Caddo Indians in Texas also mined salt from underground mines, which they boiled down to use in their cooking. Caddo hunters primarily used bows and arrows. Caddo fishermen caught fish and shellfish in basket traps. The Caddos were most famous for their pottery. Caddo artists made elaborately decorated pots and bottles in many different styles. Spiro has been the site of human activity for at least 8000 years, but was a major settlement from 800 to It’s decline may have been due to the exhaustion of local resources. Many examples of elaborate mortuary ritual are found at Middle Woodland sites including cremation, bundle burials, separate burial of skulls and mandibles, mass burials, and exotic grave offerings. At Crooks Mound in south-central Louisiana, a large conical burial mound some 26 meters (85 feet) in diameter and over 5 meters (16 feet) high contained the remains of 1159 individuals buried separately in different episodes of mound use. Most burials were in the flexed position, but numerous isolated skulls, mandibles, and bundle burials were also found. A small number of grave goods including whole pottery vessels and an assortment of exotic items such as copper ear spools show connections with distant peoples. While the extraordinary concentration of burials at Crooks is by far the largest known, burial mounds are thought to represent communal cemeteries that served a particular social group. Paleo-Archaic-Woodland-Mississippian Periods

Caddo/Spiro Pottery & Big Boy Pipe
15. Caddo pottery and the Big Boy Pipe. Artifacts from the site are considered one of the greatest collections of prehistoric Native American art in the country. Caddo/Spiro Pottery & Big Boy Pipe

Teosinte, the ancestor of corn
16. It is now known that corn was developed from the grass Teosinte, and that its domestication began 10,000 years ago in southern Mexico. A billion tons of corn were grown 2014, the most of any grain. Wheat was first domesticated 12,000 years ago. Corn reached the American southwest 5500 years ago, but was not grown in the central US—Mississippi area until 1000 CE. Over the course of thousands of years, American indigenous peoples domesticated, bred and cultivated a large array of plant species. A few of these species now constitute 50–60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide. (corn, potatoes, squash, beans, peanuts, sunflower seeds, melons, nuts) Teosinte, the ancestor of corn

17. Corn was first grown in the US in the Arizona and New Mexico, 5500 years ago. The first truly sedentary cultures to appear are the Mogollon in the Gila area by 300 BCE, the Hohokam in central Arizona by 100 BC, and the Anasazi by 100 BC. They began building their mulit-story pueblo-type buildings around 750 CE, Their largest building was Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, which was 5 stories high and had 600 rooms. They grew corn, squash and beans by irrigating with spring and summer streamflow through the canyons. By 1150 CE The Anasazi had evacuated Chaco Canyon and built their homes on cliff ledges– such as Mesa Verde. Pueblo Bonito

18. Corn reached the Mississippi about 1000 years ago
18. Corn reached the Mississippi about 1000 years ago. The Mississippian culture ( CE) was spread across the Southeast and Midwest from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the plains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Upper Midwest, although most intensively in the area along the Mississippi River and Ohio River. One of the distinguishing features of this culture was the construction of the large earthen mounds and grand plazas, continuing the moundbuilding traditions of earlier cultures. They grew maize and other crops intensively, participated in an extensive trade network, and had a complex, stratified society. The Mississippians first appeared around 1000 CE, following and developing out of the less agriculturally intensive and less centralized Woodland period. The largest urban site of this people, Cahokia—located near modern East St. Louis, Illinois—may have reached a population of over 20,000. Other chiefdoms were constructed throughout the Southeast, and its trade networks reached to the Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico. At its peak, between the 13th and 14th centuries, Cahokia was the most populous city in North America, and was not surpassed by European-American cities in population until Larger cities were constructed in Mesoamerica and South America. Monk's Mound, the major ceremonial center of Cahokia, remains the largest earthen construction of the prehistoric New World. The culture reached its peak in c , and in most places, it seems to have been in decline before the arrival of the Europeans. Many Mississippian groups were encountered by the Hernando de Soto Expedition of the 1540s, mostly with disastrous results for both sides. Unlike the Spanish expeditions in Mesoamerica, who conquered vast empires with relatively few men, the de Soto expedition wandered the American Southeast for four years, becoming more bedraggled, losing more men and equipment, and eventually arriving in Mexico as a fraction of its original size. The local people fared much worse though, as the fatalities of diseases introduced by the expedition devastated the populations and produced much social disruption. By the time Europeans returned a hundred years later, nearly all of the Mississippian groups had vanished, and vast swaths of their territory were virtually uninhabited. Cahokia

Some Adena (red) and Hopewell moundbuilder sites
19. There were literally hundreds of mound-builder sites in what is now the eastern United States. What were they for? Maturin Le Petit, a Jesuit priest came in contact with the Natchez as did Le Page du Pratz (1758), a French explorer. Both observed them in the area that later became Mississippi. The Natchez were devout worshippers of the sun. Having a population of some 4,000, they occupied at least nine villages and were presided over by a paramount chief, known as the Great Sun, who wielded absolute power. Both observers noted the high temple mounds which the Natchez had built so that the Great Sun could commune with God, the sun. Perhaps more generally, the mounds were used to elevate the priest caste above the others, and used and burial sites for powerful men. Some Adena (red) and Hopewell moundbuilder sites

Ancestor Worship, Social Hierarchy
20. Ziggurats: It has been suggested by a number of scholars that this shrine was the scene of the sacred marriage, the central rite of the great new year festival. Herodotus describes the furnishing of the shrine on top of the ziggurat at Babylon and says it contained a great golden couch on which a young woman spent the night alone. The god Marduk was also said to come and sleep in his shrine. Ziggurats were said to have been built to house the gods. Thus, they are the actual dwelling places of the gods themselves and only the priests were allowed to get inside the ziggurats. Ancestor Worship, Social Hierarchy

21. What’s it all about? What’s it all about?

22. Most scholars break North America—excluding present-day Mexico—into 10 separate culture areas: the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Basin, California, the Northwest Coast and the Plateau. 10 Culture Areas

Dominant Language Families in 1500
23. The number of distinct Native languages once spoken in all the Americas—about 2200– does much to demolish the frequent misconception of uniformity of cultures living close to nature. The estimated number of languages among precontact tribes for North America is about 300, and for Mexico and Central America 350. All major Native American mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroups emerged in the same region of central Asia, and all share similar coalescent dates, indicating that a single ancient gene pool is ancestral to all Native American populations. Similarly, all sampled native New World populations (from Alaska to Brazil) share a unique allele at a specific microsatellite locus that is not found in any Old World populations (except Koryak and Chukchi of western Beringia), which implies that all modern Native Americans descended from a single founding population that was the result of a single migration. This is further supported by ancient DNA studies showing that Paleoamericans carried the same haplogroups (and even sub-haplogroups) as modern Native groups. Thus, although the Paleoamerican sample is still small, the craniometric differences between the early and late populations are likely the result of genetic drift and natural selection, not separate migrations from different sources in Asia. Two sub-clades of haplogroup D2 are recognized, one found among central Siberian groups (D2a) and the other among Chukchi, Siberian Eskimos, and Aleuts (D2b). These sub-clades share a coalescent date of 8-6 ka, suggesting that middle-Holocene ancestors of modern Eskimo-Aleuts spread from Siberia into the Bering Sea region and not vice-versa, confirming Turner's theory of a distinct Eskimo-Aleut origin. Future sub-clade analyses of other Native American populations will test whether they, too, are the result of multiple late-Pleistocene migrations. Notes: In the northern U.S., the Schaefer and Hebior sites (Wisconsin) provide strong evidence of human proboscidean hunting or scavenging near the margin of the Laurentide ice sheet between 14.2 and 14.8 ka. At each site, disarticulated remains of a single mammoth were sealed in pond clay and associated with unequivocal stone artifacts. The bones bear consistent signs of butchering-cut and pry marks made by stone tools. Critics suggest that the bone breakage and surface marring is the result of natural processes; however, it is difficult to reject the evidence from these sites because of the consistent patterning of the marks, low-energy depositional context, and associated stone tools. Even earlier evidence of humans in Wisconsin is suggested by the cut and pry marks on the lower limb bones of a mammoth recovered from Mud Lake. These bones date to 16 ka, but stone tools are absent. Three other sites-Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania), Page-Ladson (Florida), and Paisley Cave (Oregon)-may provide additional evidence of humans in North America by about 14.6 ka, but these sites have unresolved issues. At Meadowcroft Rockshelter, artifacts occur in sediments that may be as old as 18 to 22 ka. The assemblage includes about 700 pieces, including a small lanceolate biface from the upper part of stratum IIa, which is specifically bracketed by dates of 13.4 and 15.1 ka. Objective review and unequivocal acceptance of the site, however, hinges upon resolution of dating issues and publication of a comprehensive report of the excavations. At Page-Ladson, early materials occur in a buried, submerged context in a sinkhole within the Aucilla River. Seven pieces of chert debitage, one expedient unifacial flake tool, and a possible hammerstone occurred in association with extinct faunal remains, including a mastodon tusk with six deep grooves at the point were the tusk emerged from the alveolus of the cranium. These grooves are interpreted to have been made by humans as the tusk was removed from its socket. Seven 14C dates for this horizon average about 14.4 ka, suggesting human occupation of the sinkhole occurred during the late Pleistocene when the area's water table was lower than it is today. Page-Ladson may contain evidence of Pre-Clovis humans, but a lack of detailed reporting about artifact contexts and site formation processes at the site prevent definitive evaluation. At Paisley Cave, three human coprolites are directly 14C dated to about 14.1 ka. The human origin of the coprolites is supported by ancient mtDNA analyses that showed they contained haplogroups A and B, but a complete report on these genetic studies as well as the stratigraphic and archaeological context of the coprolites is not yet available. Given the evidence of mixing in the cave's late-Pleistocene deposits, it is not possible to evaluate this evidence until it is fully reported. The evidence for humans in the Americas even earlier than 15 ka is less secure, but recently has been presented for four sites: Cactus Hill (Virginia), La Sena (Nebraska), Lovewell (Kansas), and Topper (South Carolina). Cactus Hill is a sand-dune site with late prehistoric, Archaic, and Clovis levels. Potentially older artifacts, including small prismatic blade cores, blades, and two basally thinned bifacial points were recovered cm below the Clovis level. Three 14C dates ranging from 18 to 20 ka are reported from the levels below Clovis, but there are also dates of 10.3 ka and later. Charcoal samples were not recovered from hearth features, but occur as isolated fragments at the same level as the artifacts. The younger charcoal clearly indicates some bioturbation at the site, and the older charcoal could be derived from older sediments underlying the cultural layer, but luminescence dates on the aeolian sands correlate with the 14C results and indicate minimal mixing of the sediments. Even though much information has yet to be published about this site, one thing seems clear-a biface and blade assemblage appears stratigraphically below the site's Clovis assemblage. An even older occupation of the Americas has been proposed based on taphonomically altered mammoth bones at the La Sena and Lovewell sites that date from 19 to 22 ka. Neither site has yielded stone tools or evidence of butchering; however, many of the leg bones display percussion impact and flaking, suggesting that they were quarried and flaked by humans while they were in a fresh, green state, within a few years of the death of the animals. Clovis people periodically flaked bone in this fashion, as did Upper Paleolithic Beringians; however, in those contexts humans left behind stone tools, whereas at La Sena and Lovewell stone tools remain absent. Currently, the oldest claim for occupation of North America is made at the Topper site, located on a Pleistocene terrace overlooking the Savannah River. Clovis artifacts at Topper are found at the base of a colluvial deposit, and older artifacts are reported to occur in underlying sandy alluvial sediments dated to about 15 ka. The oldest assemblage is a smashed core and microlithic industry. Cores and their removals show no negative bulbs, and flakes and spalls were modified into small unifacial tools and "bend-break tools" possibly used for working wood or bone. In 2004, similar-looking material was found in older alluvial deposits dating in excess of 50 ka. Given that the assemblage was not produced through conventional Paleolithic technologies, and that the putative artifacts could have been produced through natural processes, specifically thermal spalling, evaluation of this site must await complete reporting. Current molecular evidence implies that members of a single population left Siberia and headed east to the Americas sometime between 30 and 13 ka. The majority of studies suggest this event occurred after the LGM, less than 22 ka. Initial analysis of mtDNA haplogroup sub-clades further suggests humans spread south from Beringia after 16.6 ka. The genetic record has not revealed multiple late-Pleistocene migrations, but does distinguish a Holocene dispersal of Eskimo-Aleuts from northeast Asia. The archaeological record provides more clues about when the Americas were colonized. Humans occupied western Beringia by 32 ka, but the earliest unequivocal occupation of eastern Beringia is 14 ka. South of the continental ice sheets is Clovis, which first appears ka, and Monte Verde, Schaefer, and Hebior, which point to a human presence in the Americas by 14.6 ka. Human occupations at Meadowcroft, Page-Ladson, and Paisley Cave may also date to this time, but all have shortcomings in reporting. Together these sites may represent the new basal stratum of American prehistory, one that could have given rise to Clovis. Other sites like Cactus Hill and La Sena may be even older, but issues related to their formation need to be clarified before they can be accepted as incontrovertible proof of an early human presence in the Americas. Humans likely colonized the Americas around 15 ka, immediately upon deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor. Most mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroup coalescence estimates predict such an event, and it may correlate to the post-LGM dispersal of microblade-producing populations into northern Siberia and their eventual appearance in Beringia during the late glacial. The first Americans did use boats, as the evidence from the Channel Islands, California, attests. Once reaching the Pacific Northwest, humans could have continued their spread southward along the coast to Chile, as well as eastward along the southern margin of the continental ice sheets, possibly following traces of mammoth and mastodon to Wisconsin. Clovis could have originated south of the continental ice sheets, and the dense Clovis quarry-campsites in the southeastern U.S. may be the result of a longer time-depth there than in other regions. Alternatively, Clovis could have originated in the north, as part of a second dispersal event from Beringia to America as the interior "ice-free" corridor opened, 13.5 ka. To us, this model offers the most parsimonious explanation of the evidence at hand today. It is compatible with the emerging genetic and archaeological records-the re-dating of Clovis, the contemporaneity of fluted-point complexes in North and South America, and the presence of Pre-Clovis sites south of the Canadian ice sheets. Perhaps humans colonized the Americas even earlier, before the LGM, by 24 ka. There is clear evidence to show that people were capable of surviving in arctic western Beringia by 32 ka, and the Canadian ice sheets do not appear to have coalesced until 24 ka. To prove a pre-LGM dispersal event, unequivocal archaeological sites predating the opening of the Pacific coastal corridor (15 ka) are required in the Americas, and so far no such sites have been found. Further, current genetic estimates imply that the dispersal of modern humans from Beringia to the Americas occurred after the LGM. Dominant Language Families in 1500

Tribes & Language Groups
24. Contemporary researches put the population at about 10 million north of Mexico in Added to the far higher numbers for Mexico, Central and South America, where the large agricultural civilizations supported much greater population densities, this gives a figure for the western hemisphere as a whole of million—compared to about 70 million for all of Europe. The British Isles would have had a population of about 4 million in At the end of the 15th century there were probably more than 600 autonomous societies in what is now the US and Canada, each following its own way of life, reflecting in part the huge geographic and climatic variations in North America. Map colors west to east: Light pink California- Penutian Orange Plateau- Salish Purple Great Basin (also Kiowa, Comanche, Papago, Pima)- Aztec-Tanoan Light Green Arizona- Hokan Blue- Na Dene Green- Siouan-Yuchi Yellow- Caddoan Red- Gulf Pink- Alogonkin Dark Purple- Iroquoian Tribes & Language Groups

Northeast Native People
25. Northeast- The Northeast culture area, one of the first to have sustained contact with Europeans, stretched from present-day Canada’s Atlantic coast to North Carolina and inland to the Mississippi River valley. Its inhabitants were members of two main groups: Iroquoian speakers (these included the Cayuga, Oneida, Erie, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora), most of whom lived along inland rivers and lakes in fortified, politically stable villages where they grew corn, beans and squash, and the more numerous Algonquian speakers (these included the Pequot, Fox, Shawnee, Wampanoag, Delaware and Menominee) who lived in small farming and fishing villages along the ocean. They also grew crops like corn, beans and vegetables. Life in the Northeast culture area was already fraught with conflict—the Iroquoian groups tended to be rather aggressive and warlike, and bands and villages outside of their allied confederacies were never safe from their raids—and it grew more complicated when European colonizers arrived. Colonial wars repeatedly forced the region’s natives to take sides, pitting the Iroquois groups against their Algonquian neighbors. Meanwhile, as white settlement pressed westward, it eventually displaced both sets of indigenous people from their lands. Northeast Native People

26. Most eastern Native Americans lived in permanent towns or villages of birch-bark covered longhouses or wigwams—often surrounded by a tall defensive palisade of logs—and cultivated maize, beans and squash in nearby fields. At different seasons some would spread out to hunt. Europeans rarely perceived the farming, and saw the Indians as rootless roamers. There were innumerable tribes just along the northeastern seaboard: Micmacs, Malecites, Passamaquoddies, Penobscots, Abenakis, Massachusetts, Narragansett, Wampanoag, Nipmucs, Pequots , Mohegans, Montauks, Wappingers, Lenni Lenape (Delewares), Powhatans.

27. People of the Northeast: an Iroquois ‘princess’

CA 28. California Before European contact, the temperate, hospitable California culture area had more people (greater density)—an estimated 500,000 in the mid-16th century—than any other. It was also more diverse: Its estimated 100 different tribes and groups spoke more than 200 dialects. These languages derived from the Penutian (the Maidu, Miwok and Yokuts), the Hokan (the Chumash, Pomo, Salinas and Shasta), the Uto-Aztecan (the Tubabulabal, Serrano and Kinatemuk; also, many of the “Mission Indians” who had been driven out of the Southwest by Spanish colonization and spoke Uto-Aztecan dialects) and Athapaskan (the Hupa, among others). In fact, as one scholar has pointed out, California’s linguistic landscape was more complex than that of Europe. Despite this great diversity, many native Californians lived very similar lives. They did not practice much agriculture. Instead, they organized themselves into small, family-based bands of hunter-gatherers known as tribelets. Inter-tribelet relationships, based on well-established systems of trade and common rights, were generally peaceful. Spanish explorers infiltrated the California region in the middle of the 16th century. In 1769, the cleric Junipero Serra established a mission at San Diego, inaugurating a particularly brutal period in which forced labor, disease and assimilation nearly exterminated the culture area’s native population. At the time of Columbus, the west coast was probably the most heavily populated region north of Mexico. In California, the foundation of the diet was acorns (which had to be crushed and leached to remove bitter tannic acid). For the California Indians, the idea of kinship was crucially important. Strangers would be interviewed to discover whether they were related, however remotely, to a member of the group. If they could establish even a symbolic connection, they were accepted, literally, as one of the family; if they failed, remaining beyond the horizon of the community’s own inner world, they were treated with suspicion and even hostility. (If this seems strange, it is worth remembering that the English words kin and kindness have the same root). (same story today in Papau New Guinea and in other tribal societies) California

A few of the tribes in the San Francisco Bay Area
29. Tribes of the Bay Area A few of the tribes in the San Francisco Bay Area

30. The Yana were a northern Californian tribe of hunter gatherers and fishermen. The Yana tribe is now extinct. The last known Yana was called Ishi, who died in The demise of the Yana tribe is attributed to the diseases brought by white gold rush settlers who took over their tribal regions devastating the Yana lifestyle by felling the oak trees and with them the acorns that were an important food source of the tribe. The Yana were an independent and reclusive people. They neighbors were the Wintun tribe with whom they were frequently at war. With the opening of the Oregon and California trail white settlers, traveling in wagon trains, began to invade their lands. The discovery of gold in California swelled the number strangers as gold rush settlers flocked to the region. The Yana were fierce defenders of their diminishing territory of mountain canyons but the numbers of their people swiftly diminished as they succumbed to European diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza Acorns were roasted and eaten whole or ground into acorn meal which was used to make bread. Salmon and trout were the main types of fish eaten by the people and river mussels were available to the northern Yana bands. The tribe used rafts and dugout canoes for fishing. Hunters supplied meat from deer and small game such as quail, rabbit and small rodents. Their diet was supplemented by eating fruits, seeds, nuts, bulbs and roots. Insects such as crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars and locusts were baked when fresh meat was scarce. The clothes worn by the men of the Yana tribe varied according to the season. During the hot summer months the men were happy to hunt naked. In the colder winter months warm clothing was required. Their clothes were made from the hides of animals such as deer, elk, squirrel, rabbit and wild cats. The items of clothing included warm fur robes, shirts, wrap-around kilts or aprons, mitts and leggings that were decorated with fringes. They wore moccasins while hunting or traveling, but usually went barefoot in the warm weather. The type of clothes worn by the women of the Yana tribe included blouses and front and back aprons made of shredded willow bark. Their clothes fell to calf length between the ankle and knee, were belted, fringed and special clothes were strung with ornaments, tassels and porcupine quills. Twined tule sandals or moccasins covered their feet and they winter they wore fur robes to keep out the cold. Ishi-Yana Indian

Quilliute & Tlingit- Northwest Indians
31. The Northwest Coast--The Northwest Coast culture area, along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to the top of Northern California, has a mild climate and an abundance of natural resources. In particular, the ocean and the region’s rivers provided almost everything its people needed—salmon, especially, but also whales, sea otters, seals and fish and shellfish of all kinds. As a result, unlike many other hunter-gatherers who struggled to eke out a living and were forced to follow animal herds from place to place, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest were secure enough to build permanent villages that housed hundreds of people apiece. Those villages operated according to a rigidly stratified social structure, more sophisticated than any outside of Mexico and Central America. A person’s status was determined by his closeness to the village’s chief and reinforced by the number of possessions—blankets, shells and skins, canoes and even slaves—he had at his disposal. Goods like these played an important role in the potlatch, an elaborate gift-giving ceremony designed to affirm these class divisions. Prominent groups in the region included the Athapaskan Haida and Tlingit; the Penutian Chinook, Tsimshian and Coos; the Wakashan Kwakiutl, Nootka; and the coast Salish. Unlike their neighbors to the south, and unlike most other North American Indian groups, northwest societies were strictly hierarchical. There were chiefs and their families, commoners, and slaves; the latter could make up 30% of the population, and were usually captured from other tribes. This hierarchy was not the case with inland tribes. Quilliute & Tlingit- Northwest Indians

plains 32. The Plains- The Plains culture area comprises the vast prairie region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from present-day Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Before the arrival of European traders, explorers and horses, its inhabitants—speakers of Siouan, Algonquian, Caddoan, Uto-Aztecan and Athabaskan languages—were relatively settled hunters and farmers. After European contact, and especially after Spanish colonists brought horses to the region in the 18th century, the peoples of the Great Plains became much more nomadic. Groups like the Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Comanche and Arapaho used horses to pursue great herds of buffalo across the prairie. The most common dwelling for these hunters was the cone-shaped tipi, a bison-skin tent that could be folded up and carried anywhere. As white traders and settlers moved west across the Plains region, they brought many damaging things with them: commercial goods, like knives and kettles, which native people came to depend on; guns; whiskey, and disease. By the end of the 19th century, white sport hunters had nearly exterminated the buffalo herds. With settlers encroaching on their lands and no way to make money, the Plains natives were forced onto government reservations. The horses and later the guns that made the meteoric rise of the Plains culture possible were symptoms of the very changes which paradoxically would just as abruptly destroy it. From the beginning of the Plains life, the Lakota, the Cheyenne and others had to be more or less permanently on a war footing, as more and more tribes crowded on to the Plains, increasing pressure on the peoples already there. War parties regularly raided other groups to steal their horses. Joining a soldier society and taking part in attacks on enemies was the surest way for a young man to gain prestige. One Lakota said, ‘No boy was a full-fledged man until he had been out with a war-party and not until then was he considered eligible for marriage.’ Contact with Anglos was later than along the coasts. By the 1730s French traders were regularly visiting groups of Indians around the Black Hills. By 1800 trade was widespread and so were European diseases. The Plains

33. Catlin: ‘The Blackfeet are perhaps one of the most (if not entirely the most) numerous and warlike tribes on the continent. They occupy the whole of the country about the sources of the Missouri, from this place [mouth of the Yellowstone] to the Rocky Mountains; and their numbers from the best computations, are something like forty or fifty thousand. They are (like all other tribes whose numbers are sufficiently large to give them boldness) warlike and ferocious, i.e. they are predatory, roaming fearlessly about the country, even into and through every part of the Rocky Mountains, and carrying war amongst their enemies, who are, of course, every tribe who inhabit the country about them.’ Blackfeet Indians

34. Catlin: ‘A Crow lodge, made from 25 bison skins
34. Catlin: ‘A Crow lodge, made from 25 bison skins. The Crows, of all the tribes in this region, or on the Continent, make the most beautiful lodge. They construct them as the Sioux do, and make them of the same material, but they oftentimes dress the skins of which they are composed almost as white as linen, and beautifully garnish them with porcupine quills and scalp locks, and paint and ornament them in such a variety of ways, as renders them exceedingly picturesque and agreeable to the eye.’ A white Crow tipi

Sioux moving camp- George Catlin
35. William Catlin: ‘While ascending the river I saw an encampment of Sioux consisting of 600 lodges—struck and all things packed and on the move in a very few minutes. The chief sends his runners through the camp a few hours before they are to start, announcing his determination to move. At the time announced, the lodge of the chief is seen flapping in the wind; this is the signal; in one minute 600 of them (on a level and beautiful prairie), which before had been strained tight and fixed, were seen waving and flapping in the wind, and in one minute more all were flat upon the ground. Their horses and dogs, of which they had a vast number, had all been secured upon the spot in readiness, and each one was speedily loaded with the burden allotted to it. ‘The poles of a lodge are divided into two bunches, and the little ends of each bunch fastened upon the shoulders of a horse, leaving the butt ends to drag behind on the ground. Upon the poles is place the lodge and domestic furniture, and on the top of all, two, three, and even four women and children! Each one of these horses has conductress who walks before and leads it, with a tremendous pack on her back, and a child at her breast. In this way 500 or 600 wigwams may be seen drawn out for miles, creeping over the grass-covered plains, and three times that number of men, on good horses, strolling along in front, and at least five times that number of dogs, each cur encumbered with a car or sled (or whatever it may be better called) on which he patiently drags his load.’ Sioux moving camp- George Catlin

Migration onto the Great Plains
36. In 1700, Blackfeet were attacked by Shoshone, who are on horseback. This is the first time the Blackfeet have seen horses which they call "elk dogs.“ By 1780 they were probably the most powerful tribe on the northern plains. The Indian nations like the Sioux and Cheyenne had horses by the 1680s and 1690s. Once they had the horses they were able to move out onto the Great Plains to live and to hunt the buffalo far more easily. The horses transformed the Indians lives forever, they were able to give up farming in the river valleys and rely upon hunting on the plains instead. The evidence for this is in the legends of Cheyenne which recalls the times when they ‘lost the corn’: “My grandmother told me that when she was young ... the people themselves had to walk. In times they did not travel far or often, but when they got horses, they could move more easily from place to place. Then they could kill more of the buffalo and other animals, and so they got more meat for food and gathered more skins for lodges and clothing” Bison latifrons, the long-horned bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch. B. latifrons thrived in North America for approximately 200,000 years, but became extinct some 20,000–30,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum. The species was replaced by the smaller Bison antiquus, which in turn evolved into the yet smaller Bison bison — the modern American bison — some 10,000 years ago. 34. In 1700, Blackfeet were attacked by Shoshone, who are on horseback. This is the first time the Blackfeet have seen horses which they call "elk dogs.“ By 1780 they were probably the most powerful tribe on the northern plains. The Indian nations like the Sioux and Cheyenne had horses by the 1680s and 1690s. Once they had the horses they were able to move out onto the Great Plains to live and to hunt the buffalo far more easily. The horses transformed the Indians lives forever, they were able to give up farming in the river valleys and rely upon hunting on the plains instead. The evidence for this is in the legends of Cheyenne which recalls the times when they ‘lost the corn’: “My grandmother told me that when she was young ... the people themselves had to walk. In times they did not travel far or often, but when they got horses, they could move more easily from place to place. Then they could kill more of the buffalo and other animals, and so they got more meat for food and gathered more skins for lodges and clothing” Bison latifrons, the long-horned bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch. B. latifrons thrived in North America for approximately 200,000 years, but became extinct some 20,000–30,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum. The species was replaced by the smaller Bison antiquus, which in turn evolved into the yet smaller Bison bison — the modern American bison — some 10,000 years ago.

Cherokee & Chocktow- Southeast Natives
SE 37. The Southeast- The Southeast culture area, north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Northeast, was a humid, fertile agricultural region. Many of its natives were expert farmers—they grew staple crops like maize, beans, squash, tobacco and sunflower—who organized their lives around small ceremonial and market villages known as hamlets. Perhaps the most familiar of the Southeastern indigenous peoples are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, sometimes called the Five Civilized Tribes, who all spoke a variant of the Muskogean language. By the time the U.S. had won its independence from Britain, the Southeast culture area had already lost many of its native people to disease and displacement. In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act compelled the relocation of what remained of the Five Civilized Tribes so that white settlers could have their land. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials forced nearly 100,000 Indians out of the southern states and into “Indian Territory” (later Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee called this deadly trek the Trail of Tears. Cherokee & Chocktow- Southeast Natives

38. The Southwest- The peoples of the Southwest culture area, a huge desert region in present-day Arizona and New Mexico (along with parts of Colorado, Utah, Texas and Mexico) developed two distinct ways of life. Sedentary farmers such as the Hopi, the Zuni, the Yaqui and the Yuma grew crops like corn, beans and squash. Many lived in permanent settlements, known as pueblos, built of stone and adobe. These pueblos featured great multistory dwellings that resembled apartment houses. At their centers, many of these villages also had large ceremonial pit houses, or kivas. Other Southwestern peoples, such as the Navajo and the Apache, were more nomadic. They survived by hunting, gathering and raiding their more established neighbors for their crops. Because these groups were always on the move, their homes were much less permanent than the pueblos. The Navajo fashioned their iconic eastward-facing round houses, known as hogans, out of materials like mud and bark. By the time the southwestern territories became a part of the United States after the Mexican War, many of the region’s native people had already been exterminated. Spanish colonists and missionaries had enslaved many of the Pueblo Indians, working them to death on vast Spanish ranches known as encomiendas. During the second half of the 19th century, the federal government resettled most of the region’s remaining natives onto reservations. Navajo- Southwest

GB 39. The Great Basin- The Great Basin culture area, an expansive bowl formed by the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevadas to the west, the Columbia Plateau to the north, and the Colorado Plateau to the south, was a barren wasteland of deserts, salt flats and brackish lakes. Its people, most of whom spoke Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan dialects, foraged for roots, seeds and nuts and hunted snakes, lizards and small mammals. Because they were always on the move, they lived in compact, easy-to-build wikiups made of willow poles or saplings, leaves and brush. Their settlements and social groups were impermanent, and communal leadership (what little there was) was informal. After European contact, some Great Basin groups got horses and formed equestrian hunting and raiding bands that were similar to the ones we associate with the Great Plains natives. After white prospectors discovered gold and silver in the region in the mid-19th century, most of the Great Basin’s people lost their land and, frequently, their lives. Ute- Great Basin

Plateau Indians Plateau
40. The Plateau- The Plateau culture area sat in the Columbia and Fraser river basins at the intersection of the Subarctic, the Plains, the Great Basin, the California and the Northwest Coast (present-day Idaho, Montana and eastern Oregon and Washington). Most of its people lived in small villages along stream and riverbanks and survived by fishing for salmon and trout, hunting and gathering wild berries, roots and nuts. In the southern Plateau region, the great majority spoke languages derived from the Penutian (the Klamath, Klikitat, Modoc, Nez Perce, Walla Walla and Yakima or Yakama). North of the Columbia River, most (the Skitswish (Coeur d’Alene), Salish (Flathead), Spokane and Columbia) spoke Salishan dialects. In the 18th century, other native groups brought horses to the Plateau. The region’s inhabitants quickly integrated the animals into their economy, expanding the radius of their hunts and acting as traders and emissaries between the Northwest and the Plains. In 1805, the explorers Lewis and Clark passed through the area, drawing increasing numbers of disease-spreading white settlers. By the end of the 19th century, most of the remaining Plateau Indians had been cleared from their lands and resettled in government reservations. Plateau Indians

41. Kennewick Man is the name generally given to the skeletal remains of a prehistoric Paleoamerican man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, It is one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found. Radiocarbon tests on bone have shown it to date from 8.9k to 9k cal years B.P. In July 2005, a team of scientists from around the United States convened in Seattle for 16 days to study the remains in detail. Their research results were published in 2014 in Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton edited by Douglas Owsley and Richard Jantz. In September 2014, Dr. Douglas Owsley, a Smithsonian physical anthropologist, shared his morphology-based findings that indicated that the skeleton was not of Native American affinity, and may have been more closely related to circumpacific groups such as the Ainu and Polynesians. In June 2015, scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark determined through DNA from 8,500-year-old bones that Kennewick Man is in fact related to contemporary Native Americans, including those from the region where his bones were found. The international team of scientists had confirmed this finding to the Army Corps of Engineers as far back as Chatters, the discoverer of the bones, had long changed his mind after finding similar skull shapes among confirmed ancestors of Native Americans. The results did not surprise scientists who study the genetics of ancient people, as almost all Paleoamericans "have shown strong genetic ties with modern Native Americans". Analysis showed that Kennewick Man is “very closely related to the Colville" tribe in northeast Washington. The results were published in Nature magazine. Public officials such as Governor Inslee and Senator Murray have since called on the Corps of Engineers, who retained possession of Kennewick Man, to return the remains to Native American tribes. Many years before Kennewick Man’s death, a heavy blow to his chest broke six ribs. Because he used his right hand to throw spears, five broken ribs on this right side never knited together. He had a 2“ long spearpoint buried in his hip; given the bone growth around the embedded point, the injury occurred when he was between years old, and he probably would not have survived if he had lived alone—he died at about 40 years of age. This man was one tough dude. Kennewick Man

42. Among the Plateau Indians are included our local tribes, the Methow and Okanogan Indians. The oldest documented evidence of a human presence in the mid-Columbia region are some 13,000 year old artifacts located in an East Wenatchee orchard in 1987, where finely crafted Clovis spear points and arrowheads were found (Clovis is the name given to the earliest widespread cultural group in that portion of North America south of the glacial-age ice). From this fact we can deduce that humans have probably frequented the Methow Valley for at least 13,000 years.

43. Life was not easy for these hunter-gatherers
43. Life was not easy for these hunter-gatherers. Anthropologists has estimated that the Methows and other tribes of the mid-Columbia walked between 600 and 1000 miles a year in pursuit of food resources; it would not have been unusual to walk 30 miles in a day. Horses, which evolved in North America but went extinct on this continent towards the end of the last ice age, did not become available to Native Americans until the mid 1700s, when a large number were acquired by hook and by crook from Spanish colonists in the southwest. Population density of Native Americans in the mid-Columbia area prior to contact with Europeans is estimated to have been one to two people per square mile. This is about one fifth of the density for our region today, and is relatively high for hunter-gatherer societies in semi-arid ecosystems. Smallpox reached the mid-Columbia in 1775 and ravaged the Native Americans, reducing the overall population by as much as half. The disease preceded the arrival of the Europeans themselves by almost 40 years.

Methow Indian tribespeople about 1900
44. More than forty archeological sites of pre-historic Native American use of the Methow have been documented. These native people sustained a culture, a lifestyle and a landscape for thousands of years. They did so without any of the benefits that have accrued to our society from the discovery of dense accumulations of stored energy in the form of fossil fuels (it is estimated that in the United States fossil fuels do the equivalent work of 200 slaves for every American on a daily basis). Global supplies of conventional petroleum are being used today at such a prodigious rate (a trillion gallons a year) that they are only expected to last another fifty years; one can reasonably ask which of the two cultures will prove to be the more enduring. Methow Indian tribespeople about 1900

Energy Slaves American
45. The average American uses an amount of energy equivalent to what 200 men would expend working 24 hours a day. Energy Slaves

46. It is mildly unnerving to look out at the Methow knowing that the valley has hosted ten thousand years of a Native American culture that has now almost completely vanished. Anthropologist Eugene Hunn felt this after his intensive study of the Yakama and other native tribes of the Columbia: “My perspective has changed fundamentally: what I now see from my speeding car on Interstate 82 is more than the big sky of the Columbia Plateau, the sagebrush flats, hackberry on the rimrock, or the now restrained power of the Big River. I can see busy villages, fishermen hard at work with their nets in the swift waters, women carefully stockpiling winter’s food, children fearfully seeking spiritual guidance on a lone prominence, and the dead—resting in the land, supporting the living. The plants and mammals, birds, fish and insects are all named, familiar partners in the enterprise of survival. The mystery of this traditional way of life as it was 250 years ago is deepened by the fact that it owes nothing to our civilization.” We can only imagine all that we might have learned about this place we call home if our New American culture could have collaborated rather than clashed with the Native Americans that had known the land for millennia.

3 Eagles and Chief Joseph, Nez Perce
47. Nez Perce is a misnomer given by the interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition at the time they first encountered the Nez Perce in It is a French term meaning "pierced nose." This is an inaccurate description of the tribe; they did not practice nose piercing or the wearing of ornaments. The "pierced nose" tribe lived on and around the lower Columbia River and are commonly called the Chinook tribe by historians and anthropologists. The Chinook relied heavily upon salmon, as did the Nez Perce. The peoples shared fishing and trading sites but the Chinook were much more hierarchical in their social arrangements. Summer 1877 brought tragedy to the Nez Perce. Many of their tribe had been removed from homelands to a reservation. Now the U.S. Army was ordered to put the remaining Nez Perce there. These bands objected because they had not sold their land to the U.S. government nor signed a treaty. Nez Perce leaders decided to lead their people in search of a new home. The trek of more than 800 people and 2,000 horses was to be peaceful. But warriors killed Idaho settlers as revenge for earlier murders, which caused the Army to chase the Nez Perce. Their trek became a flight marked by skirmishes and battles, the last of which stopped them more than 1,000 miles away from their homeland and less than 40 miles from safety in Canada. 3 Eagles and Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

48. The Nez Perce traveled northeast from their homeland in the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon, across a raging Snake River, then into north-central Idaho. After a battle at Clearwater, they followed well-worn trails across the rugged Bitterroot Mountains, entering Montana near Lolo Pass. They moved without conflict south to the Big Hole, where the Army caught them by surprise and killed Nez Perce of all ages. After that, the Nez Perce moved as quickly as they could through more mountains, across Yellowstone, then north toward Canada. The Nez Perce entered Yellowstone on August 23rd. They knew the park well, having visited often to hunt and gather food or while traveling east to the buffalo hunting grounds of the Great Plains. During the two weeks they crossed the park, the Nez Perce encountered all 25 people known to be visiting the new park at that time. To obtain supplies, they attacked or took hostage several tourist parties—with no intention of harming the visitors. But as revenge for the deaths at Big Hole (an earlier battle on their trek) warriors killed two visitors, and left a third for dead. The group continued traveling through the park and over the Absaroka Mountains. They eluded Army troops in a deep, narrow canyon of the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River. At Canyon Creek, near Billings, they engaged in another battle with the Army, then continued their flight toward Canada. The last battle occurred in the foothills of the Bear’s Paw Mountains, less than 40 miles from the Canadian border, in October. After fierce fighting, the U.S. Army laid siege to the Nez Perce camp. Some Nez Perce escaped into Canada, but most were forced to surrendered on October 5. This is where Chief Joseph said, “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.” Their 1,170-mile flight had ended. Flight of the Nez Perce

Chief Seattle (Sealth)- Duwamish Tribe
49. Excerpts from the original version of Chief Seattle’s (Sealth) speech as transcribed by Dr. Henry J. Smith in 1887, the speech given in Seattle in 1855: Your God loves your people and hates mine; he folds his strong arms lovingly around the white man, but he has forsaken his red children. He makes your people wax strong every day, and soon they will fill the land, while our people are ebbing away like a fast-receding tide. It matters but little where we pass the remainder of our days; they are not many. the Indian’s night promises to be dark. A few more moons, a few more winters and not one of all the mighty hosts that once filled this broad land will remain to weep over the tombs of a people once as powerful and as hopeful as your own. Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe. Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun thrill with memories of past events connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under our feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors. When the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children shall thing themselves alone in the field, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of you woods they will not be along. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. Chief Seattle (Sealth)- Duwamish Tribe

50. Indians were traditionally a holistic and reverent people, viewing themselves as extensions of animate and inanimate nature. Religion and ritual were a function of all activity: the food quest and other survival-related work, social organization, warfare and art. It can be said that for Native peoples the natural was inseparable from the supernatural. Myth was a way of understanding reality. Native religion generally involved the belief that the universe is suffused with powerful spirits. Shamanism was a common form of religious practice, in which individuals sought to control these spirits through the use of magic. Other traits characteristic of most traditional Native cultures were a richness of myths and legends, ceremonies, and sacred objects; vision quests, and the use of psychotropic plants to facilitate those visions, music and dance as a part of ritual, and the notion of sacrifice to gain the favor of the gods or spirits. The hunter-gatherers of the north embraced a decentralized spirituality in which every individual was a seeker; shamans, of which there could be many, sought hunting favor, healing magic, and ecstatic visions. Whatever its faults, there was an ecstatic aspect to the lives of the indigenous people. The young Agrarian tradition emanating northward with the spread of maize replaced individualism with a hierarchical priesthood and secret cults. The sacred stories of the Corn Mother, as found in agricultural societies, reinterpreted the ancient myths of the Animals, relocating the generative source of fertility and new life in plants.

51. Sociopolitical Organization: For most Native North Americans for ten thousand years, in fact for most peoples throughout human history, there existed no institutionalized forms of social or political power—no state, no bureaucracy, and no army. Native societies as a rule were egalitarian, without the kinds of centralized authority and social hierarchy typical of modern societies. Custom and tradition rather than law and coercion [same thing?] regulated social life. While there were leaders, their influence was generally based on personal qualities and not on any formal or permanent status. Authority in a group derived from the ability to make useful suggestions and a knowledge of tribal tradition and lore. Among the Inuit, for example, a person with leadership qualities was called isumatag, “he who thinks.”

52. The Question of Authority: In the book ‘The Most Dangerous Superstition,’ author Larkin Rose writes, ‘The belief in "authority," which includes all belief in "government," is irrational and self-contradictory; it is contrary to civilization and morality, and constitutes the most dangerous, destructive superstition that has ever existed. Rather than being a force for order and justice, the belief in "authority" is the archenemy of humanity.’

53. Question Authority

54. Question Authority

56. Reflections on the Native American character by George Catlin, who lived with Native Americans for a number of years: There is nothing very strange about the Indian character; but that it is a simple one, and easily learned and understood. The North American Indian in his native state is an honest, hospitable, faithful, brave, warlike, cruel, revengeful, relentless—yet honorable, contemplative and religious being. I have roamed about during seven or eight years visiting and associating with thousands of these people, and from the very many voluntary acts of their hospitality and kindness I feel bound to pronounce them, by nature, a kind and hospitable people. It should be borne in mind that there is no law in their land to punish a man for theft, and that locks and keys are not known in their country, and that the commandments have never been divulged amongst them. In these little communities, in the absence of all systems of jurisprudence, I have often beheld peace and happiness and quiet reigning supreme, for which even kings and emperors might envy them. I am surrounded by living models of such elegance and beauty, that I feel an unceasing excitement of a high order—the certainty that I am drawing knowledge from the true source. I have for a long time been of opinion, that the wilderness of our country afforded models equal to those from which the Grecian sculptors transferred to marble such inimitable grace and beauty, and I am now more confirmed in this opinion, since I have immersed myself in the midst of tens of thousands of these knights of the forest. No man’s imagination can ever picture the beauty and wildness of scenes that may be daily witnessed in this romantic country; of hundreds of these graceful youths, without a care to wrinkle or fear to disturb the full expression of pleasure and enjoyment that beams upon their faces –their long black hair mingling with their horses’ tails, while they are flying over the carpeted prairie, moving with the most exquisite grace and manly beauty, added to that the bold defiance which a man carries who acknowledges no superior on earth, and who is amenable to no laws except the laws of god and honor. The room where I am painting is the place of concentration of the wild and jealous spirits of the prairie—Crows and Blackfeet, Ojibbeways, Asssinneboins and Crees, who all meet here to be amused, but gaze upon each other, sending their sidelong looks of deep-rooted hatred and revenge around the group. However, whilst in the fort, their weapons are placed in the arsenal, and naught but looks and thoughts can be breathed here. But death and grim destruction will visit back those looks upon each other when these wild spirits again are loose and free to breathe and act upon the plains. Buffalo’s Back Fat (pic in file) wears a deerskin shirt with an embroidery of porcupine quills running down the arms, and suspended below from the shoulders to the hands, a fringe of the locks of black hair, which he has taken from the heads of victims slain by his own hand in battle. Down the outer side of the leggings extends a similar band of fringed with scalp locks, worn as trophies. His wife Crystal Stone is the youngest of 8 wives, and happy to be exempted from the drudgeries of the camp. The scalps are procured by cutting out a piece of the skin of the head the size of the palm of the hand containing the very center of the crown of the head. This patch is then dried with great care, as proof of the death of an enemy, and after it has been stuck up upon a pole and the warriors have danced around it for two or three weeks at intervals, it is fastened to the handle of a lance or divided into locks and used to fringe the victor’s clothes. ‘Medicine’ is a mix of ‘mystery’ and ‘spirit,’ and a medicine bag contains some of both, along with being stuffed with moss or grass. Medicine is primarily superstition, a creation of the mind. Every Indian in his primitive state carries his medicine-bag in some form or another, to which he pays the greatest homage, and to which he looks for safety and protection throughout life. It might be called idolatry, for it would seem as if he actually worships it. Dogs and horses are sacrificed and days and even weeks of fasting and penance are suffered to appease his medicine, which he imagines he has in some way offended. If he accidentally loses his medicine bag in battle he is disgraced, and the only way for his medicine to be restored is to rush into battle and plunder one from an enemy whom he slays with his own hand. The Blackfeet are perhaps one of the most (if not entirely the most) numerous and warlike tribes on the Continent. They occupy the whole of the country about the sources of the Missouri, from this place [mouth of the Yellowstone] to the Rocky Mountains; and their numbers from the best computations, are something like forty or fifty thousand. They are (like all other tribes whose numbers are sufficiently large to give them boldness) warlike and ferocious, i.e. they are predatory, roaming fearlessly about the country, even into and through every part of the Rocky Mountains, and carrying war amongst their enemies, who are, of course, every tribe who inhabit the country about them. I look upon the Indian as the most honest and honorable race of people that I’ve lived amongst in my life, and in their native state I pledge to you they are last of all the human family to pilfer or to steal. It is the never-ending and boundless system of theft, plunder and debauchery that is practiced upon these rightful owners of the soil by acquisitive white men that I consider the affliction. I give it as my opinion, that their lives are much more happy than ours….I have long looked into the jovial faces of these sons of the forest, unfurrowed with cares, where the agonizing feelings of poverty had never stamped distress upon the brow. I have watched the bold, intrepid step, the proud yet dignified deportment of Nature’s man, in fearless freedom, with a soul unalloyed by mercenary lusts, too great to yield to laws or power except from God. All of these independent fellows are rich. Who can look without admiring into a society where peace and harmony prevail, where virtue is cherished, where rights are protected and wrongs are redressed, with no laws but the laws of honor, which are the supreme laws of the land. *** The Crow women, like all other Indian women, are slaves of their husbands, being obliged to perform all the domestic duties and drudgeries of the tribe, and not allowed to join in their religious rites or ceremonies, nor in the dance of other amusements. In the Mandan village there was initially great fear, especially among the squaws, about the paintings, that the image painted was alive, they could see the person’s eyes moving, that it was a ‘little alive’ copy of the original person and would drain their life away. After an uproar there was a meeting of chiefs, where I told them that ‘in the country I come from never allow their squaws to frighten them.’ They immediately arose, shook me by the hand, and dressed themselves for their pictures. Catlin writes ‘the Mandans, like all other tribes, lead lives of idleness and leisure, and devote a great deal of time to their sports and amusements.’ This would be true for men only; the women are not even allowed in the sports, and would not have time for them if they were. The Mandan did the wild & noisy Buffalo Dance for several days, as it was believed that this would bring the bison, and the village was hungry. Sure enough after several days bison appeared on the far hills at quite a distance. “Every heart beat with joy, and every eye glistened with gladness. Young men threw off their robes and their shirts, snatched a handful of arrows from their quivers, and their eyes smiling at their sweethearts, mounted their ponies. Over the graceful swells of the prairie, galloped the emulous youths, whose hearts were beating high and quick.” The movement of buffalo turned out to be Sioux Indians, who had heard the Buffalo Dance underway and laid a trap. “Six or eight of them appeared in the morning under the skins of buffaloes, imitating the movements of those animals while grazing. When the Mandan hunters reached the place where they had been grazing, the buffalo were gone. At that moment “forty or fifty furious Sioux on fleet horses and under full whip, rushed upon the Mandan hunters. They wheeled, and in front of them came another band more furious from the other side of the hill….They raced for home but the Sioux were too fleet for them, and whizzing arrows and the lance were heard to rip the flesh of their naked backs as they tumbled from their horses. Eight Mandan were killed and scalped.” Dancing, as I have said before, is one of the principal and most valued amusements of the Indians, and much more frequently practiced by them than by any civilized society. Instead of the giddy maze of the country dance, the Indian performs his rounds with jumps and starts and yells, much to the satisfaction of his own exclusive self, and infinite amusement of the gentler sex, who are always lookers on, but seldom allowed so great a pleasure or so signal an honor as that of joining with their lords in this way or any other entertainment. Black Belly- Cheyenne

Into the Americas: Feraterrae, the Wild Land

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