Chapter One

The First Americans

Agenda
Daily Journal Chapter One, Section One Notes Section One Vocabulary

Chapter One Preview

Section One: Early Peoples Section Two: Cities and Empires Section Three: North American Peoples

Section One: Early Peoples

The Main Idea: The Ice Age made it possible for Asian hunters to migrate to the Americas.

Focus: How did the first people arrive in the Americas? Which discovery changed the lives of the early Native Americans?

How Do We Know Our History?

History or the story of humans in the past. It tells what they did and what happened to them.

Historians are people who study and write about the human past. History began about 5,500 years ago when people first began to write.

 The story of people begins in prehistorythe time before people developed writing. Tools of Discovery: In prehistory, the time before the discovery of writing, how do we know what we know about the earliest form of people? ...

Spain 40,000 years ago

France 30,000 years ago

 Archaeology: the study of ancient peoples. Archaeologists learn about the past from artifacts, things left behind by early people. Such as stone tools, weapons, baskets, and carvings. Some people believed the Native Americans had come from Atlantis. But where did they really come from?

Beringia
The stretch of land that once joined Asia and the Americas. During its long history, the earth has passed through several Ice Ages, periods of extremely cold temperatures when part of the planets surface was covered with massive ice sheets. (Brr...sounds super-cold.)

What do you think happened?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CroosReF Vfk This gives an excellent representation of the actual events.

In Search of Hunting Grounds

The early Americans were nomads, people who moved from place to place. They gathered wild grains and fruits but depended on hunting for much of their food. The crossing of the land bridge was a migration, a movement of a large number of people into a new homeland. Cause and Effects Chart pg. 18

Settling Down
As the large game animals disappeared (what do I mean by this?) the early Americans found new sources of food. They hunted deer, birds, and rodents. Some caught fish with nets and traps. They continued to eat wild berries and grain.

And it all begins to change!

Planting seeds! Early Communities! Growth of cultures! How did it all happen? How did these simple changes change the world?