Chapter 1, Ancient America and Africa
I. The Peoples of America Before Columbus
A. Migration to the Americas
1. Arrival of humans in America is approx. 35,000 B.C.E.
a. Nomadic bands migrated to follow big game animals
b. Nomads moved across land bridge of Bering Strait
i. glaciers contained most of earth 's moisture - part of Bering Sea floor exposed
2. Main migration 11,000 – 14,000 years ago or earlier
B. Hunters, Farmers, and Environmental Factors
1. Movement from north to south to east
2. By late 1400s, Indians were part of diverse & complex societies
3. Archaeologists and anthropologists divide Native Am. history into several phrases
a. Beringian period - ended 14,000 years ago
i. initial migration
b. Paleo-Indian period – 14,000 to 10,000 years ago
i. big
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belief in supreme Creator, honored spiritual forces of nature & ancestors
3. Shared religious feeling with slave owners → African Christianity
a. older religious customs lost some power
4. Similar hierarchy as Europeans (common people lived beneath rulers & nobles)
III. Europe on the Eve of Invading the Americas
A. The Rebirth of Europe
1. Revival of long-distance trading from Italian ports brought wealth & power
2. Feudalism weakened as kings reasserted power
a. England: Magna Carta/ Parliament, France: unrest after Henry III assassinated, Spain: conquest of Muslims & Jews strengthened monarchy
3. Peasants faced famine, Black Death → economic issues, worker strikes, uprisings
a. treated better after plague b/c more valuable
b. 16th century Enclosure Movement turned many peasants into wage laborers
B. The New Monarchies and the Expansionist Impulse
1. Monarchs in France, England, Spain created social & political stability
a. strong armies, bureaucracies, taxes → economic revival
b. Renaissance (innovation, freedom of thought) → impulse to expand
2. Goals of expansion: find oceanic route to Asia & tap African gold at source
3. Portugal (poor country) lead expansion b/c used certain principles
History in The Making After reading chapter 4 of Beyond 1492 by James Axtell, one can infer that Axtell’s central argument is that the Natives were “virtually absent a century ago whereas today they are at the center of attention” (Axtell 97). At fine point, what Axtell is saying at the time that he wrote this book, is that over a century ago (1892) the Native Americans were practically nonexistent in the history of Columbus and his discovery of America. Compared to today (1992) where Indians are now being “rediscovered” thanks in part to a series of movements arising in the late 1960s. (Axtell 97). The Natives were “allegedly inarticulate,” unable to express themselves clearly, and supposing left little traces in written records.
The migration of Americans to the west was a good thing for innovation and building up the United States as a country, but the Native Americans who lived in these lands were changed forever. Any Native Americans found in lands where United States citizens wanted land was immediately excavated from their land and brought to an Indian reservation of some kind. Overtime though, these Indian reservations began to limit due to the rising population in Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. “They [Lewis and Clark] provided valuable information about the topography, the biological sciences, the ecology, and ethnic and linguistic studies of the American Indian. The mysteries of
A consistent fact of both human and environmental history is the ability of man to utilize the natural resources available to them from the environment to ensure their own survival and cultural prosperity. This fact remains consistent in the development of civilizations within North America between the indigenous Native Americans and European and European-American colonists. Between both groups, specifically the indigenous Ahtna and Koyukon, dissimilar perspectives and goals lead to varying transformation of the continent. The fundamentally contrasting viewpoints between the Ahtna and Koyukon groups and American settlers regarding the natural world lead to significant impacts on the environment. Therefore, these consequences on the environment
1491 Analysis Charles Mann investigates a new view of the effect the Native Americans had on their western lands before Columbus had visited them. Mann argues that our knowledge of the Indians may be incorrect; life before the New World may actually have been advanced, organized, and prosperous. On a visit to Beni, Mann and two archaeologists examine the Bolivian region and its few native people. One peculiar feature they noticed was the collection of forest islands, huge and almost perfectly round circles of grouped trees raised above the floodplain. The archaeologists believed this construction, which prevented the trees from being flooded, was organized by a complex society 2,000 years ago.
In the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican time period in history, there were many groups of Native Americans that had diverse cultures and societies. The technological and intellectual advancements in these societies, depended on where they were located in Mesoamerica. The Native Americans discovered many things that could help them live an advanced and satisfying life. Each tribe had different necessities and objects that they needed in order to survive. The Native American cultures in these areas had various developments that the different European cultures could use to make themselves more powerful and become strong enough to annihilate many of the Native American cultures.
In 1910, James Mooney made the first scholarly estimate of the indigenous population. He believed that in 1491, North America had 1.15 million people living there. Given his reputation, many accepted his estimates to be facts. However, as time progressed, other estimates were made, despite Mooney’s claims. In 1966, for example, Henry F. Dobyns published “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques With a New Hemispheric Estimate” in Current Anthropology.
From 1450 to 1700 the economy of Europe began to majorly change. Mercantilism was on the uprise which meant Europe began to focus more on their trade and commerce. This lead to many individuals to having a hard time gaining wealth because the government was doing everthing on a large scale. Many Europeans were just barely getting by. Then the poor would have to go to the extremes and beg and steal to make money for themselves.
Annotated Bibliography #1 "10 Things You Don 't Know About." History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
Historical archeology helps understand of how the modern world was shaped. Even the smallest a artifact can play a major role of discovering ways of how people of the past lived their lives. Throughout this assignment, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life by James Deetz, was more helpful than the rest of the reading assignments. Deetz understands the importance of how a small artifact can lead to big discoveries. Without the small detail of findings, it will be even harder to piece back the past and learned how people lived.
Many people think that Christopher Columbus’ ships sailed the sea and arrived on the land we know today as America. Although that may be true, thousands of years before Christopher Columbus made his discovery, there were nomadic ancestors of modern day, known as Native Americans, who traveled the world from Asia to what is now Alaska. Majority of Native American groups lived as hunter-gatherers, and used historical traditions to retain their history such as story-telling and art work. Native Americans and their descendants had to adapt everywhere they traveled, but ran into many misfortunes as diseases and plagues raged their tribes.
1. Paleo-Indians Paleo-Indians are described as the initial Americans, those who set forth the preliminaries of Native American culture. They trekked in bands of around fifteen to fifty individuals, around definite hunting terrains, establishing traditional gender roles of hunter-gatherers. It is agreed that such Paleo-Indians began inhabiting America after the final Ice Age, and that by 1300 B.C.E. human communities had expanded to the point of residing in multiple parts of North America. As these early Native Americans spread out, their sites ranged anywhere from northern Canada to Monte Verde, Chile.
William Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England Interprets and analyzes the changing conditions in New England’s wildlife communities such as plant and animal that happened to shift from Native American dominance to European dominance. Cronon explains that the transition from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes, commonly known to historians, on how these people organized their lives, but it also involves basic reorganizations, less well known to historians, in the region’s plant and animal communities (Cronon, xv). As the distant world and occupants of Europe were bit by bit introduced to North America’s ecosystem, the limits between the two were obscured. Cronon utilizes an assortment of proof to clarify the circumstances that prompted the dramatic ecological consequences following European contact with New England such as deforestation and different understandings that result in confusion.
Before the Spanish ship that changed it all, which arrived in the “New World” in 1492, thriving organized communities of native people had centuries of history on the land. That ship, skippered by Christopher Columbus, altered the course of both Native American and European history. 1492 sparked the fire of cultural diffusion in the New World which profoundly impacted the Native American peoples and the European settlers. Prior to European contact, Native Americans lived as hunter-gatherers, living and traveling in groups of typically less than 300 people. These Native Americans spoke over 400 languages and practiced a myriad of different religions (The American Pageant).
One of the most important in events in history is the discovery of the Americas. The invasion and exploration of the Spanish had a quite impact. In my opinion after reading and watching the video, I believe it brought a negative impact. One of the greatest tragedies in human history is the spread of communicable diseases, such as small pox, measles, influenza, whooping cough and mumps. Indian people were expose to these diseases that had no immunities to them, causing massive deaths.
Most of Europe in the past two thousand years has been ruled by monarchies, with some states having active monarchs up until the 20th century C.E. In this stretch of time, different kingdoms in Europe saw the rise and fall of absolute monarchy, which refers to a ruler having total control over his or her kingdom, free from the restrictions of legislature and customs. The rise of absolute monarchy gives credit to two features which radically transformed governance in these kingdoms, and mainly those of England and France. The feature of mercantilism allowed further involvement of the ruler in the economic sphere of his kingdom, namely in trade and production, as compared to his previous role in simply collecting revenue. Further, the king used