- The chessboard of empire: the late 17th to the early 19th century
- Also called:
- American Indian, Amerindian, Amerind, Indian, aboriginal American, or First Nation person
- Key People:
- Layli Long Soldier
- Walter Ufer
- Hermon A. MacNeil
News •
Indigenous Americans had (and have) rich traditions concerning their origins, but until the late 19th century, most outsiders’ knowledge about the Native American past was speculative at best. Among the more popular misconceptions were those holding that the first residents of the continent had been members of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel or refugees from the lost island of Atlantis, that their descendents had developed the so-called Mound Builder culture, and that Native Americans had later overrun and destroyed the Mound Builder civilization. These erroneous and overtly racist beliefs were often used to rationalize the destruction or displacement of Indigenous Americans. Such beliefs were not dispelled until the 1890s, when Cyrus Thomas, a pioneering archaeologist employed by the Smithsonian Institution, demonstrated conclusively that the great effigy mounds, burial mounds, and temple mounds of the Northeast and Southeast culture areas had been built by Native Americans.
Until the late 1980s, it was generally believed—on the basis of evidence of the Clovis projectile points that had been found in New Mexico—that humans arrived in the Americas approximately 13,500 years ago. During the last ice age, a “land bridge” (a misnomer for a very broad swath of land) connected northeastern Asia to northwestern North America. The land route is known as Beringia because it formed along the present-day Bering Strait.
Beringia began to emerge some 36,000–40,000 years ago, as the ice age began. At that time glaciers began to absorb increasing amounts of water, causing global sea levels to fall by as much as 400 feet (120 meters). A complete connection between Asia and North America existed from about 28,000 to 10,000 bce, and, at its greatest extent, Beringia may have spanned some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from north to south.
The people who moved into Beringia from Asia relied on hunting and gathering for subsistence and traveled in bands: small, mobile, kin-based groups of people who lived and foraged together. Three factors suggested that Beringia was inhabited for some time before people moved into North America itself: the long period during which the land route existed, the generally slow advance of hunter-gatherers into new territory, and the presence of unsurpassable glaciers at Beringia’s eastern extreme until perhaps 13,000 bce. When calculated from the point where sea levels began to expose the land route, Beringia may have been inhabited for as long as 20,000 years.
As the eastern glaciers began to recede, some Beringians probably followed the coast south, perhaps combining walking with boat travel; people had used boats to settle Australia as early as 50,000–60,000 bce, which suggests that such technology was by this time well-known. Other Beringians probably traveled via ice-free routes through the interior of North America; geological studies indicate that such passages probably existed in the Mackenzie Basin and along the Yukon, Liard, and Peace river systems. However, recent evidence has revealed that the ice-free routes were not viable until 12,600 years before the present. Yet numerous sites, including Gault (Texas), Monte Verde (Chile), Paisley Caves (Oregon), Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania), Cactus Hill (Virginia), Miles Point (Maryland), and others, have established that people were in the Americas 5,000–8,000 years before the ice-free routes were available, establishing that initial migration had to have been along one or both coasts.
In studies of North American prehistory, these very early cultures are generally known as Paleo-Indians. By about 6000 bce some groups had begun to experiment with food production as well as foraging; they are known as Archaic cultures. Archaic peoples often returned to the same location on a seasonal basis, and as a result began to build small settlements. Archaic subsistence techniques were very efficient, and in a number of culture areas people sustained an essentially Archaic way of life until after European colonization.
By about 1000 bce a number of American peoples had become fully reliant upon agriculture for subsistence; their cultures were eventually characterized by relatively large, sedentary societies that included social or religious hierarchies. These groups include the early farmers of the Southwest, known as the Ancestral Pueblo culture, Mogollon culture, and Hohokam culture; those east of the Mississippi valley, known as Woodland cultures and later as Mississippian cultures; and those who settled along the rivers of the Plains, known as members of the Plains Woodland and the Plains Village cultures.
Paleo-Indian cultures
Asia and North America remained connected until about 12,000 years ago. Although most of the routes used by the Paleo-Indians are difficult to investigate because they are now under water or deeply buried or have been destroyed by erosion and other geological processes, research has divulged a variety of information about their lives and cultures.
Archaeological discoveries in the first half of the 20th century indicated that the migration had occurred by about 9500 bce, and subsequent finds pushed this boundary to even earlier dates. Scholars group Paleo-Indians into two distinct traditions: the Clovis, Folsom, and related cultures of the North American interior; and the pre-Clovis cultures, whose distribution is emerging through contemporary research.
All the Paleo-Indian groups lived in a relatively dynamic landscape that they shared with Pleistocene flora and fauna, most notably with megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, giant ground sloths, sabre-toothed cats, and short-faced bears. Paleo-Indian sites often include the remains of megafauna, sometimes leading to the mistaken impression that these peoples were solely dedicated to the capture of big game. For a time this impression was sustained by a variety of preservation and identification issues such as the rapid degeneration of small mammal, fish, and vegetal remains in the archaeological record and the use of recovery techniques that neglected or ignored such materials. By the turn of the 21st century, however, excavations at sites such as Gault (Texas) and Jake Bluff (Oklahoma) had clearly demonstrated that at least some Paleo-Indians used a variety of wild animal and plant foods and so are better characterized as generalized hunter-gatherers than as people who limited themselves to the pursuit of big game.
The Clovis and Folsom cultures
In 1908 George McJunkin, a formerly enslaved ranch foreman, reported that the bones of an extinct form of giant bison (Bison antiquus) were eroding out of a wash near Folsom, New Mexico; an ancient spear point was later found embedded in the animal’s skeleton. In 1929 teenager Ridgley Whiteman found a similar site near Clovis, New Mexico, albeit with mammoth rather than bison remains. The Folsom and Clovis sites yielded the first indisputable evidence that ancient Americans had co-existed with and hunted the megafauna, a possibility that most scholars had previously met with skepticism.
The Clovis culture proved to be the earlier of the two. Clovis projectile points are thin, lanceolate (leaf-shaped), and made of stone; one or more longitudinal flakes, or flutes, were removed from the base of each of the point’s two flat faces. Clovis points were affixed to spear handles and are often found on mammoth kill sites, usually accompanied by side scrapers (used to flense the hide) and other artifacts used to process meat. Clovis culture was long believed to have lasted from approximately 9500 to 9000 bce, although early 21st-century analyses suggest it may have been of shorter duration, from approximately 9050 to 8800 bce.
Folsom culture seems to have developed from Clovis culture. Also lanceolate, Folsom points were more carefully manufactured and include much larger flutes than those made by the Clovis people. The Lindenmeier site, a Folsom campsite in northeastern Colorado, has yielded a wide variety of end and side scrapers, gravers (used to engrave bone or wood), and bone artifacts. The Folsom culture is thought to have lasted from approximately 9000 to 8000 bce. Related Paleo-Indian groups, such as the Plano culture, persisted until sometime between 6000 and 4000 bce.
Pre-Clovis cultures
The long-standing belief that Clovis people were the first Americans was challenged in the late 20th century by the discovery of several sites antedating those of the Clovis culture. Although many scholars were initially skeptical of the evidence from these sites, the late 1990s saw general agreement that humans had arrived in North and South America by at least 11,000 bce, some 1,500 years before the appearance of Clovis culture.
Dating to about 10,500 bce, Monte Verde, a site in Chile’s Llanquihue province, is the oldest confirmed human habitation site in the Americas. First excavated in the 1970s, the site did not seem to concord with findings that placed the earliest humans in northeastern Asia no earlier than c. 11,500 bce; it seemed extremely unlikely that people could have meandered from Siberia to Chile in just 1,000 years. However, excavations at the Yana Rhinoceros Horn site in Siberia subsequently determined that humans were present on the western side of Beringia as early as 25,000 bce, providing ample time for such a migration.
A number of other sites may be as early or earlier than Monte Verde: excavations of note include those at the Topper site (South Carolina), Cactus Hill (Virginia), Schaefer and Hebior (Wisconsin), Buttermilk Creek (Texas), and others. Further investigations will continue to clarify the patterns of Paleo-Indian migration.
Archaic cultures
Beginning about 6000 bce, what had been a relatively cool and moist climate gradually became warmer and drier. A number of cultural changes are associated with this environmental shift; most notably, bands became larger and somewhat more sedentary, tending to forage from seasonal camps rather than roaming across the entire landscape. Fish, fowl, and wild plant foods (especially seeds) also become more apparent in the archaeological record, although this may be a result of differential preservation rather than changes in ancient subsistence strategies. Finally, various forms of evidence indicate that humans were influencing the growth patterns and reproduction of plants through practices such as the setting of controlled fires to clear forest underbrush, thereby increasing the number and productivity of nut-bearing trees. In aggregate, these changes mark the transition from Paleo-Indian to Archaic cultures.
The duration of the Archaic Period varied considerably in Northern America: in some areas it may have begun as long ago as 8000 bce, in others as recently as 4000 bce. Between 6000 and 4000 bce the wild squash seeds found at archaeological sites slowly increased in size, a sign of incipient domestication. Similar changes are apparent by about 5000 bce in the seeds of wild sunflowers and certain “weedy” plants (defined as those that prefer disturbed soils and bear plentiful seeds) such as sumpweed (Iva annua) and lamb’s-quarters (Chenopodium album). Northern Americans independently domesticated several kinds of flora, including a variety of squash (c. 3000 bce) unrelated to the those of Mesoamerica or South America, sunflowers Helianthus annuus (c. 3000 bce), and goosefoot Chenopodium berlandieri (c. 2500 bce).
Many prehistoric Native American peoples eventually adopted some degree of agriculture; they are said to have transitioned from the Archaic to subsequent culture periods when evidence indicates that they began to rely substantively upon domesticated foods and in most cases to make pottery. Archaeologists typically place the end of the North American Archaic at or near 1000 bce, although there is substantial regional variation from this date. For instance, the Plains Archaic continued until approximately the beginning of the Common Era, and other groups maintained an essentially Archaic lifestyle well into the 19th century, particularly in the diverse microenvironments of the Pacific Coast, the arid Great Basin, and the cold boreal forests, tundras, and coasts of Alaska and Canada.
Pacific Coast Archaic cultures
Archaic peoples living along the Pacific Coast and in neighboring inland areas found a number of innovative uses for the rich microenvironments of that region. Groups living in arid inland locales made rough flint tools, grinding stones, and, eventually, arrowheads and subsisted upon plant seeds and small game. Where there was more precipitation, the food supply included elk, deer, acorns, fish, and birds. People on the coast itself depended upon the sea for their food supply, some subsisting mainly on shellfish, some on sea mammals, others on fish, and still others on a mixture of all three.
In contrast to the larger projectile points found elsewhere in North America, many Pacific Coast Archaic groups preferred to use tools made of microblades; sometimes these were set into handles to make knives composed of a series of small individually set teeth rather than a long, continuous cutting edge. However, in the Northwest Coast culture area, the people of the Old Cordilleran culture (sometimes called the Paleoplateau or Northwest Riverine culture; c. 9000/8500–5000 bce) preferred lanceolate points, long blades, and roughly finished choppers.
During the postglacial warming period that culminated between 3000 and 2000 bce, the inhabitants of the drier areas without permanent streams took on many of the traits of the Desert Archaic cultures (see below), while others turned increasingly toward river and marsh resources. In the 1st millennium bce the Marpole complex, a distinctive toolmaking tradition focusing on ground slate, appeared in the Fraser River area. Marpole people shared a basic resemblance to historic Northwest Coast groups in terms of their maritime emphasis, woodworking, large houses, and substantial villages.
Desert Archaic cultures
Ancient peoples in the present-day Plateau and Great Basin culture areas created distinctive cultural adaptations to the dry, relatively impoverished environments of these regions. The Cochise or Desert Archaic culture began by about 7000 bce and persisted until the beginning of the Common Era.
Desert Archaic people lived in small nomadic bands and followed a seasonal round. They ate a wide variety of animal and plant foods and developed techniques for small-seed harvesting and processing; an essential component of the Desert Archaic tool kit was the milling stone, used to grind wild seeds into meal or flour. These groups are known for having lived in caves and rock shelters; they also made twined basketry, nets, mats, cordage, fur cloaks, sandals, wooden clubs, digging sticks, spear-throwers, and dart shafts tipped with pointed hardwood, flint, or obsidian. Their chopping and scraping tools often have a rough, relatively unsophisticated appearance, but their projectile points show excellent craftsmanship.
Plains Archaic cultures
The Plains Archaic began by about 6000 bce and persisted until about the beginning of the Common Era. It is marked by a shift from just a few kinds of fluted Paleo-Indian points to a myriad of styles, including stemmed and side-notched points. The primary game animal of the Plains Archaic peoples was the bison, although as savvy foragers they also exploited a variety of other game and many wild plant foods.
As the climate became warmer, some groups followed grazing herds north into present-day Saskatchewan and Alberta; by 3000 bce these people had reached the Arctic tundra zone in the Northwest Territories and shifted their attention from bison to the local caribou. Other groups moved east to the Mississippi valley and western Great Lakes area.
Eastern Archaic cultures
The Eastern Archaic (c. 8000–1500 bce) included much of the Eastern Subarctic, the Northeast, and the Southeast culture areas; because of this very wide distribution, Eastern Archaic cultures show more diversity over time and space than Archaic cultures elsewhere in North America. Nonetheless, these cultures are characterized by a number of material similarities. The typical house was a small circular structure framed with wood; historical analogies suggest that the covering was probably bark. Cooking was accomplished by placing hot rocks into wood, bark, or hide containers of food, which caused the contents to warm or even boil; by baking in pits; or by roasting. Lists of mammal, fish, and bird remains from Eastern Archaic sites read like a catalog of the region’s fauna at about the time of European contact. Game-gathering devices such as nets, traps, and pitfalls were used, as were spears, darts, and dart or spear throwers. Fishhooks, gorges, and net sinkers were also important, and in some areas fish weirs (underwater pens or corrals), were built. River, lake, and ocean mollusks were consumed, and a great many roots, berries, fruits, and tubers were part of the diet.
Over time, Eastern Archaic material culture reflects increasing levels of technological and economic sophistication. A large variety of chipped-flint projectiles, knives, scrapers, perforators, drills, and adzes appear. The era is also marked by the gradual development of ground and polished tools such as grooved stone axes, pestles, gouges, adzes, plummets (stones ground into a teardrop shape, used for unknown purposes), and bird stones and other weights that attached to spear throwers.
Eastern Archaic people in what are now the states of Michigan and Wisconsin began to work copper, which can be found in large nodules there. Using cold-hammer techniques, they created a variety of distinctive tools and art forms. Their aptly named Old Copper culture appeared about 3000 bce and lasted approximately 2,000 years. Its tools and weapons, particularly its adzes, gouges, and axes, clearly indicate an adaptation to the forest environment.
In the area south of James Bay to the upper St. Lawrence River about 4000 bce, there was a regional variant called the Laurentian Boreal Archaic and, in the extreme east, the Maritime Boreal Archaic (c. 3000 bce). In this eastern area, slate was shaped into points and knives similar to those of the copper implements to the west. Trade between the eastern and western areas has been recognized; in addition, copper implements have been found as far south as Louisiana and Florida and southeastern marine shells have been found in the upper Mississippi–Great Lakes area. This suggests that transportation by canoe was known to Eastern Archaic peoples.
Along the southern border of the central and eastern boreal forest zone between 1500 and 500 bce there developed a distinctive burial complex, reflecting an increased attention to mortuary ceremonies. These burials, many including cremations, were often accompanied by red ochre, caches of triangular stone blanks (from which stone tools could be made), fire-making kits of iron pyrites and flint strikers, copper needles and awls, and polished stone forms. The triangular points of this complex may have represented the introduction of the bow and arrow from the prehistoric Arctic peoples east of Hudson Bay.
