European Colonization Of The Americas - Essay

The Paleo-Indian period covers the time during which people first came into the Americas.Since there is controversy on exactly when the first people came to the Americas, there is no starting point for the Paleo-Indian periods.

S.; others continued southward into northern Mexico; while other groups moved into the Great Basin and Southwestern regions of the U. In so doing they became the First Americans, or as the archaeologists call them, "the Paleo-Indians, and have been regarded as the ancestral populations to all of today's Native Americans." (Wilkins, 2011) The earliest and best-known of these "founders" are called the Clovis people, named after a site in New Mexico where, in the 1930s, "large, bifacial flaked stone spear points were found in direct association with mammoth bones.

(Brien, 1989) Clovis hunters left their stone points and butchered animal bones at kill sites scattered across much of North America.

In some geographical regions, people engaged in full-time agriculture, lived in cities of 10,000 people, and elevated their leaders both architecturally and socially.

"At the ancient city of Cahokia, leaders, who may have been considered as living embodiments of gods and goddesses, lived on top of giant earthen mounds which soared several hundreds of feet into the air.

"Estimates range from a low of 2.1 million to a high of 18 million.

By the 1800, the Native population of the present-day United States had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 Native Americans remained in the 1890s." (Deloria, 1984) Chicken pox and measles, endemic but rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved deadly to Native Americans.

The people already know of the certain parts of the terrible history that the Native Americans went through, but the people may not know of the history of Native Americans such as political parties, forced reservations, and role(s) in governments.

Native American history is something that needs to be expanded on and get people to understand the poor conditions and large impoverishment located among Native Americans located in America as well as Reservations.

Over time, different Indian cultures evolved so that by the end of the Archaic, North America was a patchwork of differing cultures, languages, and societies. "As early as 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, societies in many places in North America began to do things differently: moving away from mainly egalitarian social systems to extremely complex, often highly stratified, soci-political systems; shifting from nomadic to sedentary settlement patterns and living in large, permanent villages and towns." (Bordewich, 1996) They experimented with a variety of North American plants, engaged in a wide range of environmental management practices, used fire; manufactured pottery; engaged in long distance trade.

On the other hand, many archaic period societies maintained an archaic way of life until less than 100 years ago.