Basics
This is the earliest known period of Indigenous cultures in North America.
What is the Paleo Period?
These stone tools were attached to spears and used for hunting. Give an example.
What are projectile points or spear throwers? An example is the atlatl
These two periods are known for the introduction of pottery and improved tools.
What are the late Archaic Period and Woodland Period?
This theory says early humans crossed a land bridge that once connected Asia and North America.
What is the Bering Strait (or Bering Land Bridge) theory?
Historians use tools, campsites, and migration routes to support these ideas about how people came to the Americas.
What are theories?
People of the Paleo Period were mainly hunters of these large animals.
What are mammoths and bison?
Plano cultures are especially known for these long, unfluted stone points.
What are Plano points?
Woodland peoples built these large earth structures, often for ceremonial or burial purposes.
What are mounds?
As the climate warmed, Archaic peoples changed their tools and diet to match these new conditions.
What is adaptation?
Objects left behind by past peoples, such as tools or pottery, are called these.
What are artifacts?
Unlike Paleo peoples who mainly hunted large animals, Archaic peoples ate a wider variety of foods. Name two types of food they commonly ate.
What are plants (nuts, seeds, berries), small animals, fish, or shellfish?
The fluting on Clovis points likely helped with this part of the spear.
What is attaching the point to a spear shaft?
Why was grinding food an important innovation for Archaic peoples?
What is it made plant foods easier to eat, digest, and store?
Both migration theories show that early peoples were able to do this when entering new environments.
What is adapt to their surroundings?
Historians use this type of evidence to learn about people who did not have written records.
What is archaeological evidence?
Why did Archaic peoples begin to stay in one place for longer periods of time compared to Paleo peoples?
What is because food sources were more stable, tools improved, and environments allowed for semi-permanent settlements?
These materials were used by the Archaic cultures to make tools and clothing.
What are tools made from bones, stone, and wood and clothing made from animal hides?
This new technology made cooking and food storage easier during the Woodland Period.
What is pottery?
Some of the earliest Paleo sites in the Americas may support this theory because they are very close to the ocean.
What is the Coastal Migration theory?
Historians still debate these two ideas because new discoveries can change what we think we know.
What are the Bering Strait theory and the Coastal Migration theory?
Explain why Paleo cultures like Clovis, Folsom, and Plano needed different tools even though they all lived during roughly the same time period.
What is because they lived in different environments and hunted different animals, requiring different tools?
How do the differences between Clovis and Folsom points help archaeologists understand changes in animals and environments?
What is that tool shapes changed as large animals disappeared and hunting needs shifted, especially toward bison?
How do burial mounds and long-distance trade items help historians understand Woodland societies beyond daily survival?
What is that Woodland peoples had complex social structures, spiritual beliefs, organized communities, and trade networks connecting different regions?
This explains why different Indigenous cultures developed different tools and lifestyles across North America.
What is their environment and available resources?
Why do many historians believe that more than one migration route into the Americas is likely?
What is because people migrated over long periods of time, environments differed, and evidence supports both land and coastal routes?