DISCOVERIN NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN CULTURES he first people in North America lived there thousands of years before European explorers arrived These people had trekked into North America from Siberia a large area that is now part of Russia They began to cross a land bridge into North America more than thirteen thousand years ago when the Ice Age was coming to an end No one knows how many native people first settled in Northern America present day United States and Canada Population estimates for the time of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in 1492 are of nine hundred thousand to eighteen million living north of the Rio Grande Many descendants of these native people still live in North America today Arctic peoples including the Eskimo and the Aleut still live in the far northern parts of North America Life changed greatly for North America's natives with the arrival of Europeans in their lands the passage of time and the modernization of
INTRODUCTION A dancer participates in the annual Red Mountain Eagle Pow Wow in Scottsdale
CHAPTER ONE THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS he first people in North America arrived during the last Ice Age when thick ice sheets covered much of the northern part of the continent As the ice sheets absorbed water sea levels dropped and a land bridge emerged along the present day Bering Strait From about thirty thousand to twelve thousand years ago the land bridge connected northeastern Asia to what is now Alaska Humans began to cross over from Asia at least thirteen thousand years ago When the ice sheets melted the land bridge disappeared under the rising seas and the migration ended Into the Americas These people traveled southward through North America Some followed the Pacific coast perhaps combining walking with boat travel Others found ice free routes east of the Rocky Mountains that led into the heart of the continent
THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS ARCTIC OCEA Yana Rhinoceros Horn SIBERIA Rus N O R TH M E RLCA A S iron UNITED STATES Golden Ondancier JAPAN Daisy Ca Clovic laterally PACIFIC OCEAN El Jobe aire Taima LATE PLEISTOCENE PALEO INDIAN SITES SOUTH SALES AMERICAGina BRAZIL Peach Pirado Quebrada Jaguay Custrada Techuan Boaquate PERU n Areas covered by glacial lice during Pleistocene Early humansitos CHILEWS Monteverde Los Toldos The locations of archaeological sites in the Americas suggest the migration routes followed by Paleo Indians after the glaciers of the late Pleistocene Epoch melted As the ice continued to melt over time the land gradually opened up This enabled people to spread out across North America and lown through Central America into South America Historians believe one group after another continued to move far ther down through the continent over many
