3.8 America: 8000 to 5000 b.c.

North america

Back to America: Beginning to 8000 B.C.

The land bridge from Siberia to Alaska became inundated about 8,000 B.C. and, as mentioned previously, the later arriving Eskimos and Aleuts came by boat and represented the later, classical Mongolian race, as contrasted to the earlier original Mongolian stock who came over about 20,000 B.C. Possibly still later came the Athapascans, who slowly moved inland where many still live today in central, northern Canada. Some of these Athapascans eventually migrated down to the southwest United States where they became the Apaches and Navajos. Additional Notes

In the United States area big game hunting continued throughout this period but with a gradual decrease in the number of animals available. By 8,000 B.C. North American Indian culture was already divided into three great patterns:

• Eastern Woodlands , which will later be called "Archaic"
• Desert , possibly related to Eastern Woodland
• Western Paleo-Indian

Although the Eastern Woodlands actually existed from 8,000 B.C. to about 1,000 B.C., during this 8,000 to 5,000 B.C. period under discussion it was called "Early Archaic" and was characterized by big game hunting with fishing and shell and plant gathering. Burial mounds were being built in eastern Canada by 5,000 B.C. (Ref. 213 ) In the mid-west there was a related sub-culture called "Modoc", with evidence of mano and metate (stone mortar and pestle) existing about 7,200 B.C. Another variation existed in the Ozarks, Oklahoma and Mississippi. Additional Notes

The Western Paleo-Indian Culture was originally a big game hunting tradition congregated in the Great Basin lying between the Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon and the Rockies of Idaho and running south through Nevada, western Utah and the eastern part of California. The "Old Cordilleran Tradition" is a name given to the culture of Indians in the Oregon and Washington areas dating from 7,800 to 5,700 B.C. who used characteristic flaked stone points known as "Cascade points". Around 7,000 B.C. some of the hunters from the Great Basin area migrated south into the mountains and tablelands of the southwest- i.e. southern Colorado and Utah, along with Arizona, New Mexico and the Mexican states of Sonoro and Chihuahua. This migration was probably precipitated by weather changes which were making semi-arid deserts of the previous great savannahs of the Basin, and the consequent disappearance of the game. One large branch of these ancient immigrants to the southwest has been given the name recently of "Cochise" (from a county in Arizona). The so-called Sulfur Springs Phase of this culture ran from 7,000 to 5,000 B.C. and was a society dependent on hunting ancient horses, mammoths, antelope and bison with flaked projectile points. The Lake Mojave area of southern California has yielded kite-shaped points, choppers, drills and scrapers, some of which have been dated back to 9,000 B.C. At 6,000 B.C. the climate changed with a marked rise in temperature associated with drought. The great herds died out including the mastodons and camels. Many areas were denuded and there was a shifting of Indian population and a change in their living patterns. (Ref. 45 , 209 , 210 )