January 14th Native America Major Questions 1 Where did the first Americans come from 2 When did they arrive 3 How many Native Americans were there in 1492 4 What were their societies like Outline In 1492 Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas 1 Where did the first Americans come from a Beringia Migration Thesis Orthodox view Migrated from Asia specifically Siberia i 14 000 years ago the water levels lowered and Beringia was exposed between Siberia and Alaska People migrated by chasing big game ii 13 000 years ago they spread out across North and South America iii This thesis has evidence to back it up based on characteristics Americans and Asians have in common However there are flaws with this thesis when Kennewick man was found in 1996 in Washington that had features of a European instead of an Asian man b Problems i Kennewick Man The Ancient One 1 Shovel shaped incisors and three root molars 2 Physical anthropologists suggest skeleton s features are Caucasoid not Asian based on facial characteristics ii Ice free corridors 1 We don t know exactly when this opened Argue that it was 15 000 years ago Un passable swamp 2 14 000 years ago it would have been a passable prairie 3 Still others say 13 000 years ago but there is evidence that people were already living here 13 000 years ago 4 There could have been multiple migrations from Asia Beringia could have been 30 000 years ago c Alternate routes i Coastal route No evidence of boats but plausible that glaciers receded and the coastline was habitable ii South Pacific Island hopping until they landed first in South America iii Europe Most controversial Left from Northern Spain and entered the continent from the East 1 Stone tool kits used by stone age culture in Northern Spain are identical to the first Americans but the Siberians are different iv Native American origin stories They say they were always here That they fell from the sky were born from the Earth supernatural ancestors helped create the world Tsimshain etc 2 When did they arrive a 13 000 years ago at least Oldest skeletons found in the Americas are about 13 000 years old i Key artifacts concur with this Tools with clovis points Backs up the oldest skeleton found because of the Clovis point was found in Clovis New Mexico in 1927 ii What evidence says clovist first theory is wrong b Clovis Barrier 13 020 to 13 350 calendar years ago c Meadowcraft PA 16 800 calendar years ago d Monte Verde Chile 14 850 calendar years ago possibly 30 000 years old e 20 40 000 years ago Mitochondrial DNA studies say that this is when people first arrived in the Americas 3 How many Native Americans were there in 1492 Methods used for predicting populations a Ethnohistorical AKA Projection Method Historians take earliest known population data and project it backwards in time to try and figure out population before contact Problems with this i Don t know the death rates prior to European contact ii Reports of European observers are notoriously unreliable and sometimes numbers were purposely inflated iii Women and children were often not included in the population count Usually only counted warriors which were males between the ages of 16 and 40 b Archaeological method Archaeologists can reconstruct the number of houses in a given town and estimate the number town in a region and therefore determine the number of people Problems with this i Sampling data Everyone who ever lived at that site did not live in the same town c Hi counters 125 million 18 million north of Mexico d Low counters 2 million 1 million north of Mexico e Most reliable 43 65 million 5 8 million north of Mexico 4 What were their societies like Pre contact North America a 800 1500 Mississippian Moundbuilders of the Southeast ex Cahokia i This is the last most advanced of the moundbuilding culture ii Economy is built on large scale corn agriculture and home to 30 000 people iii City of Cahokia has more than 100 mounds Biggest is Monk s Mound base is 16 acres and it is 100 feet tall Still exists today b 900 1200 The Anasazi of the Southwest ex Pueblo Bonito i Chaco Canyon is the most advanced architecture of any society in pre contact North America ii Masonry iii Road engineers Rivaled anything in continental Europe They possessed knowledge of math and surveying technology and complex political system capable of distributing work