INTRODUCTION THE INUITS IN NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY The Inuit are a people who inhabit the Arctic and subarctic regions of Siberia Alaska Canada and Greenland They are just Probable extent of dry land during the last ice age SIBERIA CHUKCHI SEA Bering Strait ALASKA BERING SEA Canada Anchorage Siberia Asia and Alaska North America are today separated by an area of ocean named the Bering Strait During the last ice age the green area on this map was at times dry land Asian peoples walked from one continent to the other When the Inuits migrated from Asia thousands of years later they had to travel across the ocean sea ice one of the many groups or tribes of Native Americans who live today in North America There are well over five hundred Native American tribes in the United States and more than six hundred in Canada At least three million people in North America consider themselves to be Native Americans But who are Native Americans and how do the Inuits fit into the history of North America’s native peoples THE FIRST IMMIGRANTS Native Americans are people whose ancestors settled in North America thousands of years ago These ancestors may have come from eastern parts of Asia Their migrations probably occurred during cold periods called ice ages At these times sea levels were much lower than they are
These people photographed in 1922 are Yupiks in eastern Siberia Russia They are related to the Inuits of North America Around five thousand years ago the ancestors of the Inuit left this region and migrated eastward to colonize Arctic North America now The area between northeastern Asia and Alaska was dry land so it was possible to walk between the continents Scientists are not sure when these migrations took place but it must have been more than twelve thousand years ago Around that time water levels rose and covered the land between Asia and the Americas By around ten thousand years ago the climate had warmed and was similar to conditions today The first peoples in North America moved around the continent in small groups hunting wild animals and collecting a wide variety of plant foods Gradually these groups spread out and lost contact with each other They developed separate cultures and adopted lifestyles that suited their environments These cultures were very different than those of their original Asian ancestors The ancestors of the Inuits came to North America from Asia much more recently possibly five thousand years ago They must have walked over sea ice or traveled in boats From Alaska they
These remains of an Inuit settlement are in Nunavut Canada on the northwestern shores of Hudson Bay The Thule people who lived here from around a thousand years ago were the ancestors of the Inuits migrated through northern Canada to Greenland They always remained in these Arctic and subarctic regions Although they made trading contact with the Native American tribes to the south the Inuits never ventured into these regions to settle SETTLING DOWN Many groups of Native Americans to the south continued to gather food and hunt or fish Others however began to live in settlements and grow crops Their homes ranged from underground pit houses and homes of mud and thatch to dwellings in cliffs By 3500 B.C. a plentiful supply of fish in the Pacific Ocean and in rivers had enabled people to settle in large coastal villages from Alaska to Washington State In the deserts of Arizona more than two thousand years later
farmers constructed hundreds of miles of irrigation canals to carry water to their crops In the Mississippi floodplains the Native peoples formed complex societies They created mud and thatch temples on top of flat earth pyramids Their largest town Cahokia in Illinois contained more than one hundred mounds and may have been home to 30,000 people INUIT LIFE For the Inuit people in the frozen Arctic life was very different They built their homes of stones and driftwood or of blocks of ice For food they hunted herds of caribou or sea mammals such as whales and seals The skins of these animals were used to make clothes summer tents and tools Their lifestyle was nomadic as they followed the herds during their annual migrations Their culture barely changed from that of their Asian ancestors who continue to live in parts of Northern Siberia living similar lives to the Inuit NORTHWEST SUBARCTIC ARCTIC Cree Ojibwe GREAT BASIN COAST Inuit Ojibwe Oneida Mohawk Seminole Cherokee Creek This map of North America highlights the main Native American cultural groups along with the smaller groups or tribes featured in this series of books Shoshone CALIFORNIA PLATEAU GREAT PLAINS Nez Perce Shoshone Apache Navajo Hopi SOUTHWEST NORTHEAST SOUTHEAST Comanche Sioux Cheyenne Blackfoot Aztec
