1. The First People of
North America
Unit 2

2. SS8H1 The student will evaluate the
development of Native American cultures
and the impact of European exploration
and settlement on the Native American
cultures in Georgia.
a. Describe the evolution of Native
American cultures (Paleo, Archaic,
Woodland and Mississippian) prior
to European contact.

3. EQ: What do we
know about
ancient
Americans?

4. EQ: How did we
find out about
them?

5. EQ: How did the
ancient Americans
survive?

6. EQ: What
happened to the
ancient
Americans?

7. EQ: How did the
environment impact the
development of each
prehistoric Native
American culture?

8. EQ: How did the
various improvements
of inventions assist the
advancement of early
Native Americans?

9. Where did they come from?
• The first theory is that they came
from Asia during the last ice age.
(12,000 years ago)
• During the last ice age the ocean
levels dropped and created a land
bridge between Asia and America.
• This land bridge is known as
BERINGIA.

10. Earth Now – Earth Then

12. Beringia Land Bridge
ASIA North America

13. Humans migrated across
a land bridge known as
Beringia, now The Bering
Strait, following prey.
Prehistoric man
reached
the Southeast about
12,000 years ago

14. Where did they come from?
•Some scientists also
believe that early man
might have come to
America much earlier
and by other routes,
including by boat.

15. Possible Routes to the New World

16. How do we learn about them?
• Scientists called
ARCHAEOLOGISTS study
the first people of America.
• They study them through
ARTIFACTS.

17. How do we learn about the Native
Americans?
• Artifacts - objects that are left by
prehistoric cultures that help
archaeologists understand them.
• Prehistoric - is the time before written
history.
• Culture - a way of life shared by
people with similar arts, beliefs, and
customs.

18. The Paleo-Indians
• This is the earliest inhabitants of North
America.
• They are thought to have come to
America across Beringia.
• This period began as the glaciers from
the last ice age started to melt.

19. The Paleo Indians
• The Paleo Indians were nomadic.
Nomadic - moving from place to place
following the animal herds.
1. They used spears to hunt the animals.
2. The animals that they hunted were
wooly mammoths, large bison
(buffalos), and elk.
3. They used the animals they killed for
food, clothing, and tools. (their form of Wal-
Mart)

20. Clovis Point
First known type of spear point
found in North America

21. Paleo Indians
• The group is rarest of the prehistoric
Native Americans
(very hard to find artifacts from this group)
– They traveled in very small groups.
– They were nomadic.
– There are very few sites that archeologists can
use to learn about their everyday lives.

22. ATLATL

23. Tools that the Paleo Indians Used

24. Animals of the Paleo-Indian
Period.
Columbian Mammoth

25. Animals of the Paleo-Indian
Period.
Wooly Mammoth

26. Animals of the Paleo-Indian
Period.
Mastodon

27. Animals of the Paleo-Indian
Period.
Saber Tooth Tiger

28. The Paleo Indians
• As the ice age ended, the herds
began to shrink.
• The extinction of the large animals
changed the lives of the Paleo
Indians. (Hard to find food)
• There have been no settlements from
the Paleo-Indian period found in
Georgia, but there have been a few
artifacts found in GA.

29. Archaic Period
8000 BC – 1000 BC

30. The Archaic Period
• As the ice age ended forests began
to replace the open plains from the
ice ages.
• During this time the Paleo-Indians
were slowly replaced by the
Archaic Indians.
• This new time period lasted from
8000B.C.E to around 1000B.C.E

31. The Archaic Indians
• During this period the early humans
began to settle into small groups of
people.
• They lived in rock shelters and pit
houses.
• They also started hunting small
animals and the beginning stages of
agriculture can be seen through
gathering fruits, and berries.

32. The Archaic Indians
• They adapted to their changing environment
by improving techniques in fishing, hunting,
and gathering.
• They started making tools and bowls from
stone.
• They also began trading with other groups in
other regions.
• Started hunting smaller game, such as deer,
turkey, rabbit, and even skunk, fox, and wildcat.

33. Are the Archaic Indian
nomadic?
• YES!!!
• Archaic Indians made seasonal moves because
different food sources were available at different
places and in different times of the year.
• During the fall and winter, they camped in the
forested hills. Here the hunting was better and
they could also gather nuts.
• In the summer and spring, they returned to the
lower lying river valleys to take advantage of
fishing and collecting shellfish, such as mussels.

34. Types of Shellfish that the Archaic
Indians would have eaten.

35. Archaic Inventions/Innovations
Stone Bowl
Grooved
Axe
Nutting
Stone

36. How do you make a stone bowl?
Step 1: In order to make a steatite vessel,
mushroom-shaped blanks were carved
from boulders of steatite.
Step 2: These blanks were then carved
using a wooden mallet and a chisel made
from a deer antler.
Finished: When the bowls were
completed they could not only be used for
storage, but they could also be used in
cooking by being placed directly over a
fire.

37. Day – to Day Activities

38. Shell Middens
Some of the most informative areas of
the Archaic period are shell middens.
These are garbage piles of mussel
shells. As people disposed of the shells
year after year as they stayed at the
same campsite, these piles grew and
preserved well over time.
Archaeologists find more than just
shells in the middens. Archaeologists
also find other artifacts that provide
clues to what life was like and what
activities were taking place there,
including hide preparation,
woodworking, tool making, and house
building.