North of Mesoamerica, other peoples developed their own cultures.  Many anthropologists think that agricultural technology spread from Mesoamerica into the American Southwest and up the Mississippi River.  There, it transformed many hunter-gatherer societies into farming societies.

The Hohokam

Beginning in A.D.  300, in what is now southcentral Arizona, a group called the Hohokam built a system of irrigation canals.  The Hohokam used the Gila and Salt Rivers as their water supply.  Their canals carried water hundreds of miles to their farms.

The Hohokam grew corn, cotton, beans, and squash.  They also made decorative red-on-buff-colored pottery and turquoise pendants, and used cactus juice to etch shells.  Hohokam culture flourished for more than 1,000 years, but in the 1300s they began to abandon their irrigation systems, likely due to floods and increased competition for farmland.  By 1500, the Hohokam had left the area.

The Anasazi

Between A.D.  700 and 900, the people living in villages in what is called the Four Corners area—where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico now meet—developed another culture.  We know these people by the name the Navajo gave them—Anasazi, or “ancient ones.” Today they are often called “ancestral Puebloan” people.  In the harsh desert, the Anasazi accumulated water by building networks of basins and ditches to channel rain into stone-lined depressions.

Between A.D.  850 and 1100, the Anasazi living in Chaco Canyon in what is now northwest New Mexico began constructing large, multistory buildings of adobe and cut stone, with connecting passageways and circular ceremonial rooms called kivas.  Early Spanish explorers called these structures pueblos, the Spanish word for “villages.” Those who built them are sometimes referred to as Pueblo people.

The Anasazi built these pueblos at junctions where streams of rainwater ran together.  A pueblo in Chaco Canyon, called Pueblo Bonito, had 600 rooms and probably housed at least 1,000 people.  Later, at Mesa Verde in what is today southwestern Colorado, the Anasazi built impressive cliff dwellings.

Beginning around A.D.  1130, Chaco Canyon experienced a devastating drought that lasted at least 50 years.  This probably caused the Anasazi to abandon their pueblos.  The Mesa Verde pueblos lasted for another 200 years, but when another drought struck in the 1270s, they too were abandoned.

The Southwest

The descendants of the Anasazi and Hohokam live in the arid Southwest.  At the time of European contact, there were over 50 groups.  These groups included the Zuni, Hopi, and other Pueblo peoples.  Corn was essential to their survival in the arid climate because its long taproot could reach moisture deep beneath the surface.  The farmers also grew squash and beans.
The Pueblo people assigned different tasks to men and women.  Men farmed, performed most ceremonies, made moccasins, and wove clothing and blankets.  Women made the meals, crafted pottery and baskets, and hauled water.  The men and women worked together when harvesting crops and building houses.

Sometime between A.D.  1200 and 1500, two other peoples—the Apache and the Navajo—came to the region from the far northwest of North America.  Some anthropologists think that their arrival might have been what drove the Chichimec people into Mexico, where they formed the Aztec Empire.  Although many of the Apache remained primarily nomadic hunters, the Navajo learned farming from the Pueblo people and lived in widely dispersed settlements.

The Pacific Coast

Many different groups, including the Tlingit, Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Chinook, and Salish peoples, lived in the lands bordering the Pacific Ocean from what is now southeastern Alaska to Washington State.  Although they did not practice agriculture, these groups dwelt in permanent settlements.  They looked to the dense coastal forests for lumber, which they used not only to build homes and to fashion ocean-going canoes, but also to create elaborate works of art, ceremonial masks, and totem poles.  They were able to stay in one place because the region’s coastal waters and many rivers teemed with fish.

In what is today central California, several groups hunted the abundant wildlife and flourished in the mild climate.  The Pomo, for example, gathered acorns, caught fish in nets and traps, and snared small game and birds.  Pomo hunters, working together, would drive deer toward a spot where the village’s best archer waited, hidden and disguised in a deer-head mask.  Sometimes, the hunters stampeded game into a corral, where the animals could be easily killed.  When game was scarce, however, the Pomo relied on the acorn, which they had learned to convert from a hard, bitter nut into edible flour.

Analyzing
How did societies of the Southwest cope with the dry climate?
 

Mississippian Culture and Its Descendants
Along the Mississippi River, Native Americans built Cahokia and other large cities, while those on the Great Plains hunted buffalo herds.

Between A.D.  700 and 900, as agricultural technology and improved strains of maize and beans spread north from Mexico and up the Mississippi River, another new culture—the Mississippian—emerged.  It began in the Mississippi River valley, where the rich soil of the floodplains was perfectly suited to the intensive cultivation of maize and beans.

The Mississippians were great builders.  Eight miles from what is now St.  Louis, Missouri, are the remains of one of their largest cities, which anthropologists named Cahokia.  At its peak between about A.D.  1050 and 1250, Cahokia covered five square miles (13 sq km), contained more than 100 flattopped pyramids and mounds, and was home to an estimated 16,000 people.  Most of the people lived in pole-and-thatch houses that spread out over 2,000 acres (810 ha).  The largest pyramid, named Monks Mound, was 100 feet (30.5 m) high, had four levels, and covered 16 acres (6.5 ha)—more than any pyramid in Egypt or Mexico.  A log wall with watchtowers and gates surrounded the central plaza and the larger pyramids.

As it expanded across the American South, Mississippian culture led to the rise of at least three other large cities with flat-topped mounds—at present-day Spiro, Oklahoma; Moundville, Alabama; and Etowah, Georgia.  Mississippian culture also spread north and west along the great rivers of the region:  the Missouri, Ohio, Red, and Arkansas.

Peoples of the Southeast

The population of Cahokia mysteriously declined around A.D.  1300.  The city may have been attacked by other Native Americans or its population may have become too large to support, resulting in famine and emigration.  Another possibility is that the city was struck by an epidemic.

Although Cahokia came to an end, many aspects of Mississippian culture survived in the Southeast until the Europeans arrived.  Almost all the people in the Southeast lived in towns.  The buildings were arranged around a central plaza.  Stockades usually surrounded the towns, although moats and earthen walls were also used.  The houses were built out of poles and covered with grass, mud, or thatch.  Women did most of the farming, while men hunted deer, bear, wildfowl, and even alligator.The Cherokee were the largest group in the Southeast.  They were located in what is today western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.  About 20,000 Cherokee lived in some 60 towns when the Europeans arrived.  Other peoples in the Southeast included the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Natchez, and Creek.  The Creek were a large group living in some 50 villages spread across Georgia and Alabama.

The Great Plains

When Europeans arrived, the people of the Great Plains were nomads, who had only recently abandoned farming.  Until about 1500 the societies of the Great Plains had been shaped by Mississippian culture.  The people of the region lived near rivers, where they could plant corn and find wood to build their homes.

Around the year 1500, the peoples of the western Plains abandoned their villages and became nomads, possibly because of war or drought.  Those in the east, including the Pawnee, Kansas, and Iowa peoples, continued to farm, as well as hunt.  Peoples of the western Plains, including the Sioux, became nomadic.  They hunted migrating buffalo herds on foot and lived in cone-shaped tents called tepees.

Life for the Sioux and others on the Great Plains changed dramatically after they began taming horses.  The Spanish brought horses to North America in the 1500s.  Over the next few centuries, as horses either escaped or were stolen, the animals spread northward, eventually reaching the Great Plains.  There, the Sioux encountered and mastered them.  The Sioux soon became some of the world’s greatest mounted hunters and warriors.

Contrasting
How did the Mississippian culture affect the peoples of the Southeast?

Northeastern Peoples
Most Eastern Woodlands peoples spoke Algonquian or Iroquoian languages; combined hunting, fishing, and farming; and lived in small villages.

When Europeans arrived, almost a million square miles of woodlands lay east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes.  This landscape supported an amazing range of plant and animal life.  Almost all the Eastern Woodlands peoples provided for themselves by combining hunting and fishing with farm-ing.  Deer were plentiful in the region, and deer meat regularly supplemented the corn, beans, and squash the people planted.  Deer hide was also used for clothing.

The Algonquian Peoples

Most peoples in the Northeast belonged to one of two language groups:  those who spoke Algonquian languages and those who spoke Iroquoian languages.  The Algonquian-speaking peoples included most of the groups living in the area known today as New England.  Among these peoples were the Wampanoag in Massachusetts, the Narragansett in Rhode Island, and the Pequot in Connecticut.  Farther south, in what is today Virginia, lived the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the Powhatan Confederacy.  Native Americans in New England and Virginia were among the first to encounter English settlers.

Other Algonquian peoples included the Delaware, who lived near the Delaware River in what is today eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and the Shawnee, who lived in the Ohio River valley.  Words from the Algonquian language used in English today include succotash, hominy, moccasin, and papoose.

Many peoples in the Northeast, including the Algonquians and the Iroquoians, practiced slash-and-burn agriculture.  By cutting down parts of forests and burning the wood, they were left with nitrogen-rich ashes.  They then worked the ashes into the soil, making it more fertile for a few years.  After exhausting the soil, the people of the village would move to a new location and burn down another section of forest for farming.

Native Americans of the Northeast built several types of houses.  Many villages had large rectangular longhouses with barrel-shaped roofs covered in bark.  Other groups built wigwams.  These dwellings were either conical or dome-shaped and were formed using bent poles covered with hides or bark.

The Iroquois Confederacy

Stretching west from the Hudson River across what is today New York and southern Ontario and north to Georgian Bay lived the Iroquoian-speaking peoples.  They included the Huron, Neutral, Erie, Wenro, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk.

All the Iroquoian peoples had similar cultures.  They lived in long-houses in large towns, which they protected by building stockades.  Women were responsible for the planting and harvesting of crops while men hunted.  The people lived in large kinship groups, or extended families, headed by the elder women of each kinship group.  Up to 10 related families lived together in each longhouse.  Iroquois women occupied positions of power and importance in their communities.  Although all 50 chiefs of the Iroquois ruling council were men, the women who headed the kinship groups selected them.  Council members were appointed for life, but the women could remove an appointee if they disagreed with his actions.  In this way, Iroquois women enjoyed considerable political influence.

War often erupted among the Iroquoians.  In the late 1500s, five of the nations in western New York—the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk—formed an alliance to maintain peace and oppose their common enemy—the more powerful Huron people, who lived across the Niagara River in what is now southwestern Ontario.  This alliance was later called the Iroquois Confederacy.  Europeans called these five nations the Iroquois, even though other nations spoke Iroquoian as well.

According to Iroquoian tradition, Dekanawidah, a shaman or tribal elder, and Hiawatha, a chief of the Mohawk, founded the confederacy.  They were worried that war was tearing the five nations apart when the more powerful Huron people threatened them all.  The five nations agreed to the Great Binding Law, an oral constitution that defined how the confederacy worked.

Analyzing
How did some Eastern Woodlands groups increase their crop yield?
 

REVIEW & DO NOW Answer the following questions:
When did the first people arrive in the Americas? What do historians mean by "civilization"?	When did the first civilization rise in the Americas?  What was this civilization? BONUS: Name a concurrent civilization in the Old World at this same time.