Periods 1 APUSH 1491-1607

Bering Land Bridge

• Land bridge that connected Asia and North America (Russia to North America) during the last Ice Age

• Allowed humans and animals to migrate between the two continents, often with mammoths

• Once Ice melted, this connection could no longer be used and the Americas became cut off

Subarctic region

• hunter-gatherer

  • moose, caribou, bison, berriews, roots

• Semi-nomadic, moved with the seasons

• stone + bone-based weapons

Eastern Woodlands + Southeast region

• Used Three Sisters Farming - grew beans, corn, + squash together

• Sedentary villages with lodges and longhouses (communal housing holding multiple families per dwelling, also used as gathering halls)

• Burial/temple mounds in some regions (Cahokia - Mississippian culture, Hopewell + Adena - Ohio River Valley)

Great Plains region

• hunter-gatherer (women collected medicinal plants, men grew tobacco + hunted gain)

• Primarily nomadic (tipis made of buffalo skin)

• Earth lodges built in villages

• Known for artistry in beadwork, quill work, + buffalo-hide painting, often used to depict tribal symbols + history

Great Basin/Plateau regions

• hunter-gatherer with 70% of diet vegetal, hunted bison, deer, elk, + mountain sheep

• Semi-nomadic, moving with seasons (windbreaker shelters in summer, domed brush/grass covered shelters in winter, teepees used for traveling shelters)

• Hunting tech - bows + arrows, nets

• Pottery, tanned hides, baskets, shells for trade

Southwest region

• Cliff-dwelling communities

  • Puebloan people had multi-story adobe dwellings called pueblos and utilized cliffs + natural alcoves

• Irrigation systems in arid desert conditions

• Kiva ceremonies - partially underground ceremonial chambers for religious rituals

  • ceremonies included storytellers, dancing, veneration of ancestors + deities

  • well-known for pottery, textiles, basketry

Symbols + storytelling in early Native American communities

• Totem poles - artwork that exhibited status symbols/storytelling

• Detailed masks, baskets, textiles, + jewelry also incorporated storytelling designs of animals + ancestors

Decentralized Europe

• System for structuring society around relationships derived from holding of land in exchange for labor (Kings, lords, knights, serfs)

  • 90% of European population - farming peasants/serfs with malnourished, poor, freedomless lives

• Practiced primogeniture - eldest son inherits the most

• Roman Catholic church - unifying institution

• Kings were recognized with divine power

Reasons for European exploration

God (expanding Christianity), Gold (new resources + riches), + Glory (growing centralized power + keeping up)

Spanish colonization

• Hernán Cortes overthrew Aztec empire, Francisco Pizarro overthrew Incan empire

• Conquistadors received encomiendas (land grants) from Spanish Crown

  • gave Spanish legal rights of territory where they collected tribute + labor of Native Americans (plantations, mines, or territory)

• Gold + silver discovered in Mexico + the Andes - 50%of world’s supply of silver exported each year

• Casta system - racial hierarchy (Peninsulares, creoles, mestizos, native americans, enslaved persons)