Chapter 16 Lesson 1: The First Americans

Main Ideas

It is believed that the first people in the Americas came from Asia during the Ice Age The invention of farming led to the rise of civilizations in the Americas Early people in the northern part of the Americas built complex cultures based on farming and trade

Vocabulary
Glacier: huge sheets of ice

Monopoly: control all (or almost all) trade or production of a certain good

Main Idea #1
How did people get to the Americas?

Via landbridge

Where did the people come from?

Asia

Do we only mean North America when we talk about the Americas in this context?

NO!
All of North and South America

How did people get food?

Hunting

Gathering

woolly mammoth antelope caribou bison fish

nuts fruits roots

Main Idea #2
Where did farming begin?

Mesoamerica

Rich, volcanic soil and a mild climate

Crops included pumpkins, peppers, squash, gourds, and beans. Eventually corn.

Mesoamerican Civilizations

Olmec: Started around 1500 B.C.; lasted about 800 years

Toltec: Held a monopoly on obsidian, keeping others from making weapons

Teotihuacan: Place
of the Gods; reached its height around A.D. 400

Maya: Disappeared around A.D. 900

Aztec: Copied Toltec ways; control of the region's ways

Moche: South of Mesoamerica; good at farming and raising animals

Largest Mesoamerican Civilization

Inca

Build the biggest empire in the ancient Americas Capital Cuzco Founded in A.D. 1100

Main Idea #3
On what did early people in North America build their cultures?

farming and trade

Hohokam

Anasazi

Around A.D. 300 Between the Salt and Gila Rivers Dug more than 500 miles of canals Droughts drove them away?

Around A.D. 600 Present day New Mexico Controlled the trade of turquoise- used like money 50-year drought

Mound Builders

Mississippians

East of the Mississippi River Around 1000 B.C. Until about A.D. 400 Built mounds of earth-some in the shapes of animals

From present-day Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to south of the Gulf of Mexico City may have become too big to feed itself

Review Main Ideas

The first Americans were most likely hunter-gatherers who came from Asia across a land bridge.

A number of civilizations developed in the Americas. All were dependent on farming.

In North America, farming civilizations arose in the Southwest and then the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys.

Early American Art