Levels of the oceans decreased => creating a land bridge which those people, Paleo-Indians, used to move from Asia to America.

Following large animals that they hunted

Were hunting-gathering nomads.

Big mammals scarcer => because of climate changes but also because too many had been hunted

Indians: started to farm the land to supplement their diet.

Reached the tip of South America some 10,000 years ago.

Difficult to estimate the number of Indians in America before the arrival of the Europeans => 5 to 8 million in North America/ over 50 million in Central/South America (Europe's population: close to 75 million)

Central/South America: several Indians tribes built large cities (100,000 people)

Created empires (the Aztecs, Incas or Mayas)

North America: no empires => lived in small villages: permanent for the sedentary tribes/temporary for the nomads (exception: The Mount Builders in present-day in Ohio: lived in larger towns (75,000 people), but they had disappeared before European colonization)

A tremendous diversity in Indians' ways of life.

Northeast of what is now the US: most tribes => in permanent villages, relying on agriculture (beans, corn, squash…)/ on hunting-gathering for their subsistence

The Great Plains: nomadic tribes => depend on hunting buffaloes (follow the migrating herds)

The Southwest: tribes like the Hopi => sedentary/ cultivated the land

The Pacific Northwest (present-day Washington State and Oregon): some tribes > lived on fish that they caught in the rivers.

Men:-Hunted deer, rabbits, ducks, geese, beavers, buffaloes (on the Great Plains) bears, moose, elk... with bows and arrows, spears or clubs

-Fished with harpoons, hooks and lines, nets...

Women: Gathered berries, wild plants, seeds, roots, nuts and farmed the land.

Sedentary tribes of the Southwest: Men farmed the land/Women gathered berries and prepared the food.

Indians: different types of shelter

nomads => simple shelters that they could carry easily: The Plains Indians had tepees made of buffalo skins

Sedentary tribes => larger houses: in the Northeast, dome-shaped wigwams/ the Iroquois had rectangular houses called longhouses that could be up to 100 feet long

In the Southwest > the Narajos lived in round hogans made of poles and earth/ the Hopi had houses in adobe

Indians => not monotheist: believed in a spiritual force superior to human beings => able to influence

their lives, their food, healing the sick or victory in wars.

That spirit > in nature, in animals and plants(pantheism)

Shamans (medicine men or women): in close contact with spirits => to treat the sick (also using herbs...)

Indians => religious activities: ceremonies were performed=>to gain supernatural power or to fulfil a vow made to spirit in return for aid to obtain food or rain (rain dances relying on agriculture)

Some tribes: sweat lodges (with water poured over stones to produce steam) => to purify their bodies/to cure illnesses

Clothing: used animal skins (deer hide, buffalo hide, rabbit and beaver fur, bird feathers...)

In the Southwest: used cotton.

Dialects: in North America, 3000

Used sign language => to understand each other (developed by the various tribes of the Great Plains)

Used smoke signals.

This diversity explains the lack of alliances when they were invaded (few exceptions)

This language => oral: proof of Indians' inferiority by the Europeans/ the "New World"

Tribes => subdivided into clans (with the same ancestor)

Some had one chief.

Others had several (one led during wartime and the other during peacetime)

Others had a tribal council: formed of people respected for their wisdom and knowledge, often elders.

Some tribes=> created federations: to fight against common enemies

Most famous: the Iroquois.

Indians: engaged in warfare => a need of resolving a dispute: for instance, over hunting grounds (competition for the best ones)

Some Plains tribes: fighting an enemy, robbing him of his possessions, taking prisoners => a way of proving one’s worth, especially for the young men

Young men: to go through rites of initiation of some kind in order to be considered as adults ->stealing another tribe's possessions/going without food for a long time/living alone in the wilderness/killing an animal...

Indians: not developed the wheel/no horse => to travel on foot or in canoes on waterways

Lack of transportation => not prevent them from trading with other tribes: often traded goods for other goods (tobacco, salt...)

Some used objects as money (sea shells...)