A remarkable series of events between the 1200s to the 1500s led to a broad transformation of much of the world, bringing

peoples together from far-flung corners of the globe. The local and regional systems of an early era gave way to a global system. This reordering of the world created great wealth for some and utter destruction for others as peoples from three regionsthe Americas, Europe, and Africaencountered one another. Out of these encounters developed new settlements and colonies in the New World, including the thirteen British colonies that would eventually become the United States. THE AMERICAS BEFORE CONTACT WITH THE EUROPEANS Homo sapiens are relatively new to the Americas. Historians and archaeologists believe the first people migrated to the new world many millennia agoas recently as 15,000 years ago and as far back as 30,000 years ago. Current theories hold that people from Asia crossed into North America across a land mass called Beringia. North America was experiencing an Ice Age, locking up enormous quantities of water and lowering sea levels. Thus, the area that today is beneath the Bering Straits was then a land bridge connecting Asia and North America. Continental Expansion Once in North America, these early migrants quicklywithin 1,000 to 2,000 yearsspread throughout the Americas. The first Americans initially displayed striking cultural similarities. Archaeologists have found similarly shaped arrowheads throughout the Americas. The ubiquity of these arrowheads, which have often been found in proximity to the remains of mammoths, indicates a similar nomadic hunting culture among these disparate Americans. Adaption and Diversity Between approximately 11,000 and 5,000 years ago, the uniformity of the culture gave way to regional adaption and variation. The reasons for this are varied. The mammothcentral to the culturebecame extinct. In addition, the Ice Age gave way to the vast variety of climates, rainfall levels, temperatures, and wind patterns that characterize the Americas today. Over time, the peoples of the Americas adapted to the different regions of the Americas, developing a vast variety of cultural patterns. Regional Variation on the Eve of Contact with Europeans Several distinct regional groupings of native people developed in North and Central America. The people of the Great Plains, occupying the grassy areas east of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in present day California, depended on a variety of fish, game, and plants. Eastern woodlands peoples settled along rivers and depended on hunting small game such as deer. About 4,000 years ago, they developed agricultural practices and pottery. Southwestern peoples adapted to the dry climate, which is without abundant natural vegetation, by cultivating corn about 3,500 years ago. Over time, these regional variations gave way to the specific tribal groupings that European settlers and explorers encountered. On the eve of Columbuss arrival in the Americas, these native peoples numbered anywhere from 4 to 20 million in North Americamaking for low population density throughout the vast continent.