9781422283561

Introduction

As these original settlers traveled south through North America, they followed the herds of animals that were their prey. There were bison, mammoths, mastodons , giant sloths, and beavers. These people (who are called Paleo-Indians by anthropologists) were big game hunters, particularly on the Great Plains and in the northeast. The enormous variety of arrowheads from this time show that they were very good at hunting. By 6000 bce the immigrants had probably spread throughout the whole of North and South America. From about 8000-1000 bce people were settling down: they built villages and domesticated animals. Around the continent different peoples developed skills such as metal-working, art, trading, and, by 1000 bce , farming in the east. Why Indians? Two and a half thousand years later when Columbus reached the Americas, he named the people he met los Indios wrongly believing that the land he had found was India. This name became popular throughout Europe and has been used ever since, even though Indians have their own names. In this book when Indians are referred to as a group they are called Native Americans.

The Mound Builders Two groups of people formed the Adena and Hopewell cultures. They lived in the northern part of the Mississippi Valley. They probably arrived there from the south around 3500 bce . They farmed the land and hunted, building their houses on circular mounds of earth. The Adenas and Hopewells also made burial mounds, some of which are still visible today. The most famous Adena mound is the serpent mound in Ohio. The Hopewell group were great traders; their goods have been found in areas ranging from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Great Lakes.

A frog pipe made by a member of the Hopewell culture.

T he painting on these rocks in Arizona is ancient picture writing done by prehistoric Native Americans. This example is called the Newspaper Rock.

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