Native Americans Arctic Region Sections 1-3 Colorado

​Native American Introduction

How did the first Americans adapt to their environment?

Open Ended

How did the first Americans adapt to their environment?

​Introduction

As a cold winter wind howls outside, the children huddle under thick fur blankets. They listen to their grandmother's soothing voice tell about a Great Spirit who ruled over a world of sky and water at the beginning of time. Then the Great Spirit, says Grandmother, created land, plants, and animals. Finally, from living wood, the Great Spirit carved people for the new world.

These Abenaki (a-buh-NAH-key) children of New England are learning a traditional story about how their people began. Most groups have beliefs about where they came from. You may have heard stories about how your own relatives first arrived in the United States. But do you know where your ancestors were living 10,000 years ago?

Open Ended

Where do you think your ancestors were living thousands of years ago?

​Only if you are American Indian did you have relatives in the United States that long ago. Europeans and other groups did not establish permanent settlements in North America until a little more than 500 years ago. For thousands of years, the first Americans had the American continents to themselves. In this lesson, you will learn about these resourceful [resourceful: good at finding ways to solve problems] people and the creative ways they adapted to their environments.

​Even today, scientists are still trying to find out more about the first Americans. These early people left few written records, so researchers study other items they left behind. Not much has survived except for a few animal and human bones, some stone and metal tools, and bits of pottery. Scientists sift through these clues trying to imagine how they lived and how their lives changed over time. They come up with ideas about how American Indians adapted to their physical surroundings. When scientists find a new object, they try to figure out whether it supports their current ideas or suggests new ones. In your lifetime, we will probably learn much more about how the first Americans adapted to their environments and may revise [revise: to change in order to improve] many of our conclusions.

Multiple Choice

How did the first Americans share their stories?

• Through written texts and books.
• By painting on cave walls.
• Through oral traditions and storytelling.
• Using modern technology like social media.

1 Migration Routes of the First Americans

Scientists believe that the first Americans migrated on foot from Siberia, in Asia, to present-day Alaska. Today, a strip of ocean called the Bering Strait separates Alaska and Asia. But there was a time when a land bridge connected them.

Across a Land Bridge About 30,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, temperatures fell, and much of Earth was covered by glaciers, sheets of ice up to a mile thick. With water locked up in the glaciers, the level of the oceans dropped an estimated 300 feet. This exposed a wide bridge of land between Asia and North America that scientists call Beringia (bear-IN-jee-uh).

​In the summer, Beringia's grasslands attracted large Asian mammals, such as mammoths, which are long-haired cousins of the elephant. Over thousands of years, the animals slowly spread eastward, and generations of Siberian hunter families soon followed. Armed with only stone-tipped spears, they killed these huge, powerful animals for food. Eventually, perhaps between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, some of the hunters reached America. Other migrants may have traveled along the coast of Beringia by boat to catch fish, seals, and other marine mammals.

​Migrating East and South

Once in America, hunters followed the animals south, where spring brought fresh grasses. Then, about 10,000 years ago, Earth warmed again. As the glaciers melted and the oceans rose, the land bridge disappeared. Mammoths and other traditional prey began to die off, perhaps from overhunting, the change in climate, or a combination of the two.

The descendants of Siberian hunters had to find new sources of food and new materials for clothing and shelter. These people, now known to us as American Indians, became hunter-gatherers, catching smaller animals, fishing more, and collecting edible plants and seeds. Over thousands of years, they spread across the two American continents, from the Pacific to the Atlantic and from Alaska all the way to the tip of South America.

Multiple Choice

Where did the First Americans migrate TO?

• North and South America
• Europe
• Asia
• Australia

2 The First Americans Adapt to the Environment

American Indians lived, and continue to live, in a variety of places, from snowy forests to dry deserts and vast grasslands. Each of these kinds of places is an environment. An environment [environment: all of the physical surroundings in a place, including land, water, animals, plants, and climate] includes everything that surrounds us—land, water, animals, and plants. Each environment also has a climate, or long-term weather pattern. Groups of early American Indians survived by adapting [adapting: to change in order to adjust to a new condition or environment] , or changing, their style of living to suit each environment, its climate, and its natural resources [natural resources: useful material found in nature, including water, vegetation, animals, and minerals] .

​Adapting to the environment

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American Indians had a strong connection to their surroundings and viewed themselves as a part of the community of plants, animals, and other natural objects. They learned to use the natural resources in their environments for food, clothing, and shelter. By using most or all parts of the plants and animals they took, American Indians were careful to not waste anything.

American Indians also learned to modify the land to suit their needs. For example, tribes that lived in the woodlands along the Atlantic Ocean often set fires to clear heavy forest growth so deer could browse and berries could grow. American Indian farmers in the desert built ditches to carry water to dry fields.

Multiple Choice

How did Native Americans view themselves and the world around them?

• They viewed nature as a resource to be exploited.
• Native Americans believed they were superior to other cultures.
• Native Americans viewed themselves as interconnected with nature and the spiritual world, emphasizing harmony and stewardship.
• Native Americans saw themselves as isolated from the spiritual world.

​In the frigid regions of the north, American Indians fashioned homes made of animal skin to protect them from the icy winds. In warmer climates, American Indians gathered wild plants or learned to raise crops such as squash, chili peppers, beans, and corn. Growing their own food enabled them to settle in one place instead of following animals or searching for edible plants in the wild. These early farmers built the first villages and towns in America.

Multiple Choice

What enabled early Native American people to settle into small communities?

• The rise of urban centers.
• The discovery of metal tools.
• The invention of the wheel.
• The development of agriculture (farming).

​American Indian Cultural Regions

Over generations, groups of American Indians developed their own cultures [culture: a people’s way of life, including beliefs, customs, food, dwellings, and clothing] , or ways of life. Many became part of larger groupings that were loosely organized under common leaders.

Groups living in the same type of environment often adapted in similar ways. Forest dwellers often lived in houses covered with tree bark, and many desert peoples made shelters out of branches covered with brush.

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Over generations, groups of American Indians developed their own cultures [culture: a people’s way of life, including beliefs, customs, food, dwellings, and clothing] , or ways of life. Many became part of larger groupings that were loosely organized under common leaders.

Groups living in the same type of environment often adapted in similar ways. Forest dwellers often lived in houses covered with tree bark, and many desert peoples made shelters out of branches covered with brush.

​

By studying artifacts (items made by people) like old American Indian dwellings, historians have grouped American Indian peoples into cultural regions. A cultural region [cultural region: an area in which a group of people share a similar culture and language] is made up of people who share a similar language and way of life.

By the 1400s, millions of American Indians lived in ten major cultural regions north of Mexico. In this lesson you will take a closer look at nine of these regions. They include the Arctic, Northwest Coast, California, the Great Basin, the Plateau, the Southwest, the Great Plains, the Eastern Woodlands, and the Southeast.

​3 American Indians of the Artic

The Arctic cultural region extends throughout the northernmost regions of Canada and Alaska. Much of the Arctic region is made up of tundra, a type of climate zone with cold temperatures and no trees.

In the winter, the Arctic region's temperatures are below freezing and are often accompanied by snowstorms. During the summer, the temperature is still cool, but the sun rarely sets fully, so it is often bright outside even at night. Because of these extreme conditions, few people called the Arctic cultural region home.

Multiple Choice

What type of climate do the people in the Arctic live in?

• Desert climate
• Tropical climate
• Tundra

• Temperate climate

​Finding Food

The cold climate often made finding food difficult in the tundra since few plants were able to survive the harsh environment. Throughout most of the year, the tundra was covered in a thick layer of frozen soil, which (in combination with the continuous daylight in summer and the powerful winds all year long) prevented many plants from surviving in the region. The vegetation that was hardy enough to survive the harsh conditions was usually inedible to humans. Without edible food to find or grow, the people of the region could not rely on agriculture to survive.

Open Ended

Did plants grow in the Arctic?

​This vegetation did, however, attract herds of caribou and other animals to the region. During the summer months, the people of the Arctic followed the caribou into the tundra for food. As winter approached, they would migrate to the coast of the Arctic Ocean and hunt sea mammals and fish.

Multiple Choice

What did the Arctic Native Americans eat?

• Dairy products and grains
• Wild game and nuts
• Marine mammals, fish, caribou, and other animals.

• Fruits and vegetables only

​Settling the Arctic

Though some Arctic people created large permanent settlements along the coast, many others migrated between the coast and tundra in search of food. As they did, their requirements for a shelter changed. Scarce resources often influenced what kinds of shelters they could create, as well.

​During the summer months, as they followed caribou through the tundra, the people of the Arctic built movable animal-skin tents. These tents provided shelter from the cold and harsh winds, but also allowed the people to easily follow the caribou herds. In the winter months, these tribes did not need to move as often in search of food. However, without trees, the options for shelter were limited. Many built temporary shelters called iglus (IG-looz) out of blocks of snow or partially underground homes made out of stone or soil. These shelters kept them warm during frigid winters.

Draw

Draw a picture of what the Arctic Native Americans lived in during the summer.

Draw

Draw a picture of what the Arctic Native Americans lived in during the winter months.

Types of, and materials for, crafts and

clothing

The First American peoples of the Arctic Region used blocks of snow, stone, soil, animal skin for their crafts and animal skins from Caribou, seals and whales for their clothing.

Tools used in the Arctic Region

Tools were often crafted from bone or walrus ivory, as well as drift wood and stone when they were available. Spears and harpoons were most often used by the Inuit in the hunting of sea mammals such as seals and whales.

Multiple Choice

What type of tools were used in the Arctic Region?

• Metal tools
• Stone, bone, walrus ivory and driftwood.

• Plastic tools
• Glass tools