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
DISCOVERING NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN CULTURES WHY WERE THEY CALLED INDIANS When the explorer Christopher Columbus landed in the New World he used the term Indios Spanish for Indians for the native people because he thought he had reached a part of South Asia called the Indies In the 1960s many activists in the United States and Canada rejected the label Indians because of its mistaken origin In these countries Native Americans became the preferred term Later Native Americans in Canada began to refer to themselves as First Nations Various peoples of the Arctic prefer the terms Alaska Native Yupik or Inuit Canadians of mixed First Nations and European heritage are known as Métis Yet even with this great variety of terms many native people of North America continue to identify themselves as Indians Paleo Indians The earliest people of North America are called Paleo Indians The prefix paleo comes from a Greek word meaning early or ancient The Paleo Indians shared Some cultural traits with peoples of Asia such as the use of fire and domesticated IO
Paleo Indians used tools such as this Goshen projectile point to hunt huge game animals dogs However they do not seem to have used other Old World technologies such as grazing animals domesticated plants and the wheel The Paleo Indians were hunters and gatherers They lived in small family based groups called bands that moved from place to place in search of food They shared the land with large mammals such as mammoths mastodons and giant bison Archaeological sites of Paleo Indians often include bones from these animals This has sometimes led to the mistaken idea that II
