CIVILIZATIONS OF MESOAMERICA

PEOPLE SETTLE IN THE AMERICAS

• Mesoamerica is made up of Mexico and Central America
• 12,000 to 10,000 years ago scholars believed people first arrived in America
• Scholars still trying to figure out how they migrated
• Believed that people came from Asia and entered through Alaska
• This migration was thought to take place at the end of the last Ice Age

PEOPLE SETTLE IN AMERICA:CONT.

• During the Ice Age water froze into ice sheets, causing a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska
• 10,000 B.C. Earth warmed and covered the pathway
• It is thought that Hunters followed herds of bison and mammoths across the Bering Starit
• Another theory: people migrated to Americas along coastal routes paddling small boats
• Researches now base the dates of migration into the Americas on evidence found at prehistoric sites

ADAPTING TO NEW ENVIROMENTS

• The first Americans faced different environments that included mountains and rivers
• Mountains: the Rockies, Sierra Madre, the Andes
• Rivers: the Mississippi River and the Amazon
• In the North and South the land was icy and treeless; Near the equator the land was hot with wet climates and dense vegetation
• Hunters needed to adapt to deserts, woodlands, and fertile plains

PEOPLE BEGIN TO FARM & BUILD VILLAGES

• Learned to domesticate plants and animals between 8500 B.C. and 2000 B.C.
• In Mesoamerica, people cultivated crops such as beans, sweet potatoes, peppers
• Also, tomatoes, squash, and maize- the Native American word for "corn"
• South Americans cultivated crops like maize and cassava
• Also domesticated animals like llamas for their wool

CONTINUED...

• Farmers began to settle in villages in South America by 3000 B.C.
• Farmers began to settle in villages in Mesoamerica in 1500 B.C.
• Some of the villages eventually grew into great cities of early America

CRITICAL THINKING ?'S

• What theory do you believe: that hunters followed herds of bison and mammoths over the land bridge or that people migrated to parts of the Americas perhaps by small boats? Why?
• How do you think the new Americans adapted to the new environments?
• How has development of agriculture always been essential to development of civilization?