PRE-COLUMBIAN NORTH AMERICA : PRE 1492
●Why do we know so little about pre-columbian societies?
- Very little source material (little written language)
- Europeans did not write that much about them
1. European prejudice
2. Impact of disease (wiped out 90% of natives)
I. People coming to New World (What brought natives to the New World?)
1. Beringia: Ice from Siberia to Alaska from the Ice Age that connected the
Continents
- Came during Ice Age
- Through the Bering Strait
- Came around 14,000 years ago (12,000 BC)
2. Paleo Indians: People who originally arrived to the new world
- Arrived ~14,000 years ago
- Nomadic Hunters
- Hunted Mastodons, Mammoths, Giant Sloth “Mylodon”
- Culturally Homogenous and unsophisticated
3. End of Ice Age
- Extinction of Herd Animals
- Adaptation to particular natural environments
- “Archaic Level”
