Chapter 1 Terms

Pleistocene Overkill

Hunters overkilled mammals to near extinction

Mexican Farming

Main crop was corn, or Maize

Mesoamerica

"Middle America" the region extending from modern-day Mexico through Central America

Archaic Period

10,000 - 2,500 Years ago, the retreat of glaciers

Population of the Indian America

2.81 million people, alone or 3.18 million

Anasazi

A Native American who lived in what is now southern Colorado and Utah and northern Arizona and New Mexico and who built cliff dwellings

Natchez

A group of Native American farmers located on the lower Mississippi River; wiped out by the French; their ruler, the Great Sun, lived on a ceremonial mound in their capital; stratified society with a small nobility; engaged in public torture & human sacrifice

Athapascan

A people that began to settle the forests in the northwestern area of North America around 5000 B.C.E.

Aztecs

Also known as Mexica, they created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 C.E.). They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax.

Cherokee

Are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia, the Carolinas and Eastern Tennessee). Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian-language family. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were located.

Hohokam

Built separate stoneand timber houses around a plaza developed :

Clans

Extended Families

What are the ways in which early Americans lived on/off the land?

Farming, and hunter/gather

Who are the Indian People? What evidence suggests that they migrated from Asia

Indian people are people that lived in NA before the English. DNA that closely related the indians and the Asians shows that they migrated from asia

Mississippi Society

Innovations: Bow and Arrow, Northern Flint (Maize that grew fast and was bigger), flint hoes.These innovations led to the development of the Mississippian culture. Mississippians were master maize farmers and lived in permanent settlements along the Mississippi flood plains. Hierarchical chiefdoms had political control.The Mississippian society had all of the traits of European civilization (urbanization, social stratification, craft specialization, and regional trade) except a writing system.

What factors led to the organization of the Iroquois Confederacy

Iroquois Confederacy, also called Iroquois League, Five Nations, or (from 1722) Six Nations, confederation of five (later six) Indian tribes across upper New York state that during the 17th and 18th centuries played a strategic role in the struggle between the French and British for mastery of North America. The five Iroquois nations, characterizing themselves as "the people of the longhouse," were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After the Tuscarora joined in 1722, the confederacy became known to the English as the Six Nations and was recognized as such at Albany, New York (1722).

Desert People - Great Basin

Original inhabitants of the region may have arrived by 12,000 BCE. 9,000 BCE to 400 CE marks the Great Basin Desert Archaic Period. Who were hunter-gatherers, as well as agriculturalists.

Rancherias

The Spanish term for small Indian settlements. Rancherías are a particular California institution.

Transoceanic Migrations

The migration of a population across an ocean

Farmers of the Eastern Woodlands

The people of the Eastern Woodlands are classified into two main groups, the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands farmers) and the Algonquians (Eastern Woodlands hunters). This division is based on the roots of their languages and their main source of food.

How was farming developed?

The use of a wide variety of food sources during the Archaic period led many indians to develop and adopt the practice of farming

The South

There are approximately 40,000,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean that belong to the almost 600 indigenous peoples of the continent, many of whom are in Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia and Ecuador. According to World Bank figures, 12.76% of the entire American population and approximately 40% of the rural population is indigenous.

The Southwest

There are many American Indian tribes native to the Southwest of the United States. These tribes are located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado (the southern section). There are five tribes from the Southwest: Apache, Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, and Zuni. Most of these Southwest Indians lived in villages and farming was their main occupation.

Algonquin

a member of any of the North American Indian groups speaking an Algonquian language and originally living in the subarctic regions of eastern Canada

Creeks

a powerful nation of Indians who lived in parts of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama; they built towns around a plaza that was used for ceremonies or festivals

Clovis Tradition

a powerful new and sophisticated style of tool making, unlike anything found in the Old World

Cahokia

an ancient settlement of southern Indians, located near present day St. Louis, it served as a trading center for 40,000 at its peak in A.D. 1200.

Choctaws

another group of Indians that made up the "Five Civilized Tribes," the Choctaws were settled in the southeast of America before they were also forced to move to Oklahoma. Their journey was known as the Trail of Tears.

Hopi Kachinas

any of various ancestral spirits deified by the Hopi Indians and impersonated in religious rituals by masked dancers. a Hopi religious ritual at which such masked dancers perform.

Beringia

land bridge that connected Asia and North America

Forest Efficiency

the use of the land and its resources by the Indian peoples east of the Mississippi River during the Archaic Period

The Northeast

varied geography of plains, mountains, rivers, lakes, and valleys. Iroquois have lived there for 4,500 years. Population growth and the development of farming led to the development of chiefdoms.