1. What animal would be
most useful to the first
people in Kansas
Thursday
September 5th

2. Timeline highlights
• Earliest evidence of humans about 7000 BCE
• Climate change between 6500-3550 BCE
• 1300-1500 permanent housing
• 1541 Europeans appear

3. The Earliest People
• The Kansa believed
the Great Spirit
created humans.
• This is part of the
Kansa Oral Tradition
• Oral Tradition-
Stories passed from
generation to
generation.

4. The Kansa Creation myth
The "Master of Life" first created man. His
solitary life, however, caused him to cry out in
anguish, so the "Master" sent down a woman to
alleviate his loneliness. A small island created
before the main part of the earth caused
frustrated the fathers to drown unwanted
children, thus prompting more compassionate
mothers to ask the Great Spirit to provide more
living space. Their prayers were answered when
beavers, muskrats and turtles were sent down to
enlarge the island from the floor of the great
waters, and in time the earth assumed its present

5. How do we know?
• Without an oral tradition
how do we know what
groups lived in Kansas?
• Through the use
artifacts
• Artifacts, are
something made or
used by people in the
past
• With artifacts we can
track the migration, and
adaptation of native

6. Migration
• The first people in
Kansas were big
Game Hunters
• Followed the large
Ice Age animals as
they migrated south.
• Migration is the
movement of things
from one place to
another

7. Big Game Hunters
• The is very little know
about the big game hunters
• Called Big Game Hunters
because they hunted large
mammals like mammoths
• Tools have been found near
mammoth remains
conforming this
• No known language, or
what they called
themselves
• It is known that they
domesticated dogs

8. Adaptation
• About 10,000 years ago
the climate changes
• Over a long period of
years it becomes hotter
and drier
• This means big game
hunters have to adapt
• Adaptation, is how
people and animals
change to suit their
environments.

9. Adaptation
• Some plants animals become extinct others
change to survive
• This change results in humans having to adapt
as well

10. Think about it
In separate paragraphs answer two of the
following questions
What would happen to you if you lost a major food
source?
A Clothing Source
Or if the temperature got hotter