1. Early Americans
What is something you already know about the
“Early Americans” topic?
What is something that excites or interests you
about the “Early Americans” topic?
What is something that you learned from today’s
introductory reading?
What is something that you want to learn about
the “Early Americans” topic?

2. Early Americans

3. Cultures in America
• When did the first
Americans arrive?
• Possibly 22,000 years ago
• Last Ice Age had frozen
vast quantities of water,
creating land bridge
between Russia and
Alaska - the Bering Strait
• Ancient hunters trekked
across the frozen land into
North America

4. Hunting and Gathering
• Earliest Americans lived as big-
game hunters
• Lifestyle changed when
temperatures warmed, glaciers
melted, and sea levels rose
once again
• Land bridge disappeared under the
Bering Sea
• Climate grew warmer and larger
animals no longer thrived
• People gradually switched to
Clovis Point
hunting smaller game and fish and
gathering nuts and berries

5. Agriculture
• Many ancient groups settled in North
America, others continued into what is
now Mexico and South America.
• Between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago, an
agricultural revolution took place in what
is now central Mexico.
• Planting of crops eventually led to the
spreading of agricultural techniques
• Agriculture made it possible for people
to settle in one place
• Large communities developed

6. Early American Agriculture
Complex farming
methods by early
societies in South
America
Terrace farming

7. Cultures in North America
• Several North American groups,
Hohokam and the Anasazi, introduced
crops into deserts of Southwest U.S.
• Other Native American societies
(Adena, Mississipian, Hopewell)
developed
• These people became the first
cultures in North America
• Between 300 BC and AD 1400, each
group had established its own culture
• Ancestors of the many Native
American groups that inhabited
North America around
1400’s-1500’s

8. Native American Societies
of the 1400s
• Many different
cultures emerged
in North America
• Varied regions of
the North
American
continent provided
for many different
ways of life
• Native groups that
populated the
continent’s coasts,
deserts, and forests

9. Maya, Aztec and Inca
• First empire of the Americas
emerged as early as 1200 BC in
what is now southern Mexico,
the Olmec
• After Olmec collapse around
400 BC, Maya built a dynamic
culture in Guatemala and the
Yucatan Peninsula between AD
250 and 900
• Later the Aztec settled the
valley in Mexico during the
1200s
• Inca people dominated South
America and created a complex
culture

10. Course Goals
• Understand people and
societies:
• Identify, analyze and explain
early American cultures and
people
• Understand why people
change:
• Examine and describe how
cultures interact and result in
a change of culture

12. The Big Picture
Get familiar with 3 of 4 Cultural Characteristics
major early American
cultures
Location and Map
1. Maya
2. Aztec
3. Inca Timeline
4. Anasazi

13. Cultures in Early America
• Culture: Knowledge, attitudes, and
behaviors shared by and passed on by
members of a specific group
• All products of human thought
• How people should behave in the group
• Cultural Characteristics:
• food and shelter and religion
• relationships and language
• education and security/protection
• political and social organization
• creative expression/art
• A groups that shares a geographic region,
sense of identity and culture is called a
society