Fascinating Facts LEARNING ABOUT THE FIRST AMERICANS California has the highest present-day American Indian population of any of the fifty states. Some American Indian mothers carried infants in a cradleboard, a lace-up bag made of animal skin on a wooden frame. Corn, beans, and squash were important foods to the American Indians. The Iroquois called them the three sisters. Genre Comprehension Skill Text Features Nonfiction Summarize Sidebar Captions Glossary Scott Foresman Social Studies ì<(sk$m)=beiifb< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U ISBN 0-328-14885-7 by Stephanie Sigue
In different areas of the United States, archaeologists dig for clues about the past lives of American Indians. In this book you will read about how archaeologists search for information that will add to our understanding of the way these people lived long ago. LEARNING ABOUT THE FIRST AMERICANS Vocabulary archaeologist artifact longhouse lodge tepee pueblo mesa by Stephanie Sigue ISBN: 0-328-14885-7 Copyright Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, Illinois 60025. Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois Parsippany, New Jersey New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts Duluth, Georgia Glenview, Illinois Coppell, Texas Sacramento, California Mesa, Arizona 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
Archaeologists work at a dig in Wenatchee, Washington. When an archaeologist begins to study a group of people, he or she hopes to answer some questions. When and where did these people live? What can we learn about how they lived? What kinds of artifacts, or things people made in the past, have they left behind? For many centuries different groups of American Indians, or Native Americans, lived in what is now the United States. Nature always played an important part in their lives. We can learn how American Indians lived long ago from the knowledge that has been passed to American Indians today. More can be learned from the work of archaeologists. American Indians of the Eastern Woodlands One of the major groups of the Eastern Woodlands were the Iroquois. The name Iroquois refers to the members of several American Indian groups. These groups included the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, and the Oneida. The Iroquois were farmers who lived in the forests of the Eastern Woodlands. They used trees to build their villages, homes, and some of their tools. Iroquois villages were built on hills so that the villagers could see the enemy in case of an attack. Some villages were large and had a population of one thousand people. A fence made of logs protected each village. The Iroquois lived in longhouses. A longhouse was about 20 feet wide and between 75 feet and 120 feet long. It was made of wooden poles covered with bark. Inside a longhouse were places to store things and places for families to live. This model shows an Iroquois longhouse. 2
In what is the present-day Southeastern United States, American Indians lived in towns. Each town had three common features. A circular meetinghouse was where town leaders met. There was a town square where religious events took place, and there was a large court where games were played. This picture shows a Creek log house. A Seminole chickee has open sides. The Creek, the Choctaw, and the Cherokee all lived in what is the present-day Southeastern United States. They lived in plain rectangular houses. Houses were made from wood, and each had a roof made from straw or tall plants. The Seminole, originally part of the Creek, lived in Florida, where it was hot, humid, and swampy. They built small houses with open sides called chickees. The houses were built on platforms so they did not flood during the rainy season. 4 5
This is an example of a Mandan village in the 1800s. American Indians of the Great Plains The Great Plains were home to many different groups of American Indians. Some Plains Indians stayed in one place. These groups, which included the Pawnee, the Omaha, and the Osage, lived in earth lodges. Their lodges were square with a floor that was below ground level. Large wooden posts made the corners. Thin poles were used for walls and long poles formed the roof. Mats of woven grass covered the poles. An opening, or smoke hole, was left in the roof s center. Starting at the base, the builders applied a coat of mud to the walls. The mud kept the house warm during the winters and cool during the summers. The Mandan and the Hidatsa lived in villages along the upper Missouri River in North Dakota. They built lodges made from earth and winter lodges near a large wood supply. The Mandan and the Hidatsa needed wood to make fires. Each earth lodge was very large. A lodge had a dome shape and could be forty to sixty feet wide and fifteen feet high. The roof was made of wooden beams and was covered with willows, grass, and sod. A family s belongings, including dogs and horses, were all kept inside the lodge. Horses were kept inside so they would not be stolen. Changing Ways of Life In the 1500s Spanish explorers brought horses with them to North America. This changed the ways of life of American Indians of the Great Plains. Horses made hunting easier and allowed American Indian groups to travel farther and faster. Over time, many of these groups became nomads who moved from place to place. 6 7
Many American Indian groups of the Great Plains did not stay in one place. They were nomads who moved from place to place. The Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Comanche, the Blackfoot, and the Crow were all nomads. They hunted buffalo and followed the buffalo herds. Because groups of the Great Plains were always on the move, they needed dwellings that were easy to carry, so they designed the tepee. A tepee could be packed up and carried away easily. It had a coneshaped frame made from long, tall poles that were tied together at the top. Tepees were covered with buffalo hides. Once a year, each tepee was covered with a new, fresh hide. The remains of this pit house include a fire pit and a storage room. American Indians of the Desert Southwest American Indians of the Desert Southwest lived in a variety of dwellings. The early Mogollon (moh-gohyohn) and the Hohokam (huh-ho-kum) people built pit houses. These houses were partly underground. Each pit house was a rectangle with wooden poles that leaned in to support the roof. This created side walls that sloped. The roof and walls were covered with branches, grass, and a thick layer of adobe, or mud. 8 9
American Indian cliff dwellings and pueblos are two finds made by archaeologists in the Desert Southwest. Cliff dwellings were found in an area called Mesa Verde (MAY-seh VEHR-dee). A mesa is a hill with a flat top and steep sides. Mesa Verde is in an area called the Four Corners. This is where the present-day borders of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. Here the ancient Anasazi people built their homes in the steep sides of the mesa. Archaeologists call the people who lived in these places cliff dwellers. Some American Indian pueblos were like large apartment buildings. These great houses contain hundreds of rooms and underground chambers. Some of the largest and most famous great houses are in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. One called Pueblo Bonito has about eight hundred rooms. Archaeologists believe there was room for as many as three thousand people in this great house. The largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde is called the Cliff Palace. It had 217 rooms and 23 kivas. A kiva is an underground room that was used for special ceremonies. 10 11
People have found American Indian arrowheads all over the United States. Art and Other Objects Archaeologists also look for tools, weapons, clothing, pottery, and baskets. All of these things can help them learn more about ancient people. Tools and weapons can tell scientists how people hunted for food. From the size and weight of a weapon, scientists can tell how hunters used it. Before the Europeans arrived in North America, American Indian women made clothing from animal skins. They also decorated clothing with porcupine quills. Some dyed the quills before sewing them onto clothes. The Europeans brought new materials with them, including glass beads. American Indian women began to use fancy beadwork to decorate clothing. Often they created pictures of animals, such as thunderbirds. This beadwork showing an eagle appears on a Tlingit (TLING-git) ceremonial robe. 12
This painted Sioux flat pouch was made of buffalo rawhide. The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., contains more than 800,000 objects. The objects are from North and South America and span ten thousand years of American Indian history. There is still much to learn about how American Indians lived long ago, and archaeologists continue to dig for answers. What archaeologists learn from artifacts and the histories passed on to American Indians today help us understand how American Indians lived long ago. This Anasazi bowl was made in the 1300s. The buffalo was an important animal to American Indians of the Great Plains. It was a major source of food. Its skin was used to make both clothing and homes. Many American Indians were and are expert potters, basket makers, and weavers. Today their objects are prized possessions of individuals and museums around the world. 14 15
Glossary archaeologist a scientist who studies the artifacts of people who lived long ago and draws conclusions from them artifact an object made by people in the past lodge a large, round hut built by American Indian groups of the Great Plains longhouse a building used for shelter by the Iroquois Write to It! Write a paragraph comparing either the tepee used by American Indian groups of the Great Plains or the cliff dwellings of American Indians of the Desert Southwest to one of the dwellings built by American Indians of another region. Write your paragraph on a separate sheet of paper. mesa a high, flat landform that rises steeply from the land around it pueblo an American Indian village of the Desert Southwest region of the United States, typically made up of stone or adobe dwellings tepee a dwelling built by American Indians of the Great Plains Photographs Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions. Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education. Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd) 16 Opener: Bettmann/Corbis 2 Warren Morgan/Corbis 3 Stock Montage Inc. 4 The Image Works, Inc. 5 Marilyn Angel Wynn/Nativestock 6 North Wind Picture Archives 8 Bettmann/Corbis 9 Nancy Carter/North Wind Picture Archives 10 Joseph Sohm; ChromoSohm Inc./Corbis 12 Hemera Technologies/Alamy 13 Ernest Manewal/SuperStock 14 Tom McHugh/Photo Researchers, Inc. 15 George H. H. Huey/Corbis