Editing Pre-Columbian era (section)

==North America==
{{further|Aboriginal peoples in Canada#History|History of North America#Pre-Columbian era|List of archaeological periods (North America)|Native Americans in the United States#History|Pre-Columbian Mexico}}

===Lithic and Archaic periods===
{{Main|Lithic stage|Archaic period in the Americas}}
[[File:America 1000 BCE.png|thumb|right|Simplified map of subsistence methods in the Americas at 1000 BCE
{{legend|#FEFE00|[[hunter-gatherers]]}}
{{legend|#00FE00|[[Agriculture|simple farming societies]]}}
{{legend|#FE7334|complex farming societies (tribal [[chiefdom]]s or [[civilization]]s)}}
]]The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded during the [[Lithic stage]]. It finally stabilized about 10,000 years ago; climatic conditions were then very similar to today's.<ref name="icaage">{{cite book|last1=Imbrie|first1=John|last2=Imbrie|first2=Katherine Palmer|title=Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GIxRp9fRDGwC&pg=PP1|year=1979|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-44075-3}}</ref> Within this time frame, roughly about the [[Archaic period in the Americas|Archaic Period]], numerous [[archaeological culture]]s have been identified.

====Lithic stage and early Archaic period====
The unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early [[Paleo-Indian]]s soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes.<ref>Jacobs (2002).{{full citation needed|date=January 2018}}</ref> The Paleo-Indians were [[hunter-gatherer]]s, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family. These groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/281017 |last1=Kelly |first1=Robert L. |first2=Lawrence C. |last2=Todd |title=Coming into the Country: Early Paleo-Indian Hunting and Mobility |jstor=281017 |journal=[[American Antiquity]] |volume=53 |issue=2 |year=1988 |pages=231–244|s2cid=161058784 }}</ref> During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct [[megafauna|giant land animals]] such as [[mastodon]] and [[bison antiquus|ancient bison]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Breitburg |first1=Emanual |first2=John B. |last2=Broster |first3=Arthur L. |last3=Reesman |first4=Richard G. |last4=Stearns |title=Coats-Hines Site: Tennessee's First Paleo-Indian Mastodon Association |journal=Current Research in the Pleistocene |volume=13 |year=1996 |pages=6–8}}</ref> Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools, including distinctive projectile points and knives, as well as less distinctive butchering and hide-scraping implements.

The vastness of the North American continent, and the variety of its climates, [[ecology]], [[vegetation]], [[fauna]], and landforms, led ancient peoples to coalesce into many distinct [[linguistics|linguistic]] and cultural groups.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fagan|first1=Brian|last2=Durrani|first2=Nadia|title=People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M8lwCgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1|edition=fourteenth|year=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-34682-1}}{{page needed|date=January 2018}}</ref> This is reflected in the oral histories of the indigenous peoples, described by a wide range of traditional [[creation stories]] which often say that a given people have been living in a certain territory since the creation of the world.

Throughout thousands of years, paleo-Indian people domesticated, bred, and cultivated many plant species, including crops that now constitute 50–60% of worldwide agriculture.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.allbusiness.com/agriculture-forestry-fishing-hunting/331083-1.html |title=Native Americans: The First Farmers |work=AgExporter |date=1 October 1999 |publisher=Allbusiness.com |access-date=3 June 2011}}</ref> In general, Arctic, Subarctic, and coastal peoples continued to live as hunters and gatherers, while [[plant cultivation|agriculture]] was adopted in more temperate and sheltered regions, permitting a dramatic rise in population.<ref name="icaage"/>

====Middle Archaic period====
[[File:PreColumbian American cultures.png|thumb|Major cultural areas of the pre-Columbian Americas: {{legend0|#4747a1|Arctic}} {{legend0|#50828e|Northwest}} {{legend0|#40895d|Aridoamerica}} {{legend0|#b4581b|Mesoamerica}} {{legend0|#548434|Isthmo-Colombian}} {{legend0|#b1c759|Caribbean}} {{legend0|#b94343|Amazon}} {{legend0|#8b782a|Andes}}]]After the migration or migrations, it was several thousand years before the first complex societies arose, the earliest emerging about seven to eight thousand years ago.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}} As early as 5500 BCE, people in the Lower Mississippi Valley at Monte Sano and other sites in present-day [[Louisiana]], [[Mississippi]], and [[Florida]] were building complex [[earthworks (archaeology)|earthwork]] [[mound]]s, probably for religious purposes. Beginning in the late twentieth century, archeologists have studied, analyzed, and dated these sites, realizing that the earliest complexes were built by [[hunter-gatherer]] societies, whose people occupied the sites on a seasonal basis.<ref>Gibson, John L. "Navels of the Earth: Sedentism in Early Mound-Building Cultures in the Lower Mississippi Valley." ''World Archaeology'', Vol. 38, No. 2 (June 2006), pp. 311-329. Stable URL: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40024503]. P. 311</ref> [[Watson Brake]], a large complex of eleven platform mounds, was constructed beginning in 3400 BCE and added to over 500 years. This has changed earlier assumptions that complex construction arose only after societies had adopted agriculture, and become sedentary, with stratified hierarchy and usually ceramics. These ancient people had organized to build complex mound projects under a different social structure.

====Late Archaic period====
[[File:Poverty Point Aerial HRoe 2014.jpg|thumb|left|Artist's reconstruction of [[Poverty Point]], 1500&nbsp;BCE]]
Until the accurate dating of Watson Brake and similar sites, the oldest mound complex was thought to be [[Poverty Point]], also located in the [[Lower Mississippi Valley]]. Built about 1500 BCE, it is the centerpiece of a culture extending over 100 sites on both sides of the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]]. The Poverty Point site has earthworks in the form of six concentric half-circles, divided by radial aisles, together with some mounds. The entire complex is nearly a mile across.

Mound building was continued by succeeding cultures, who built numerous sites in the middle Mississippi and [[Ohio River]] valleys as well, adding [[effigy mounds]], conical and ridge mounds, and other shapes.

===Woodland period===
{{Main|Woodland period}}
[[File:Mound City Chillicothe Ohio HRoe 2008.jpg|thumb|Hopewell mounds from the [[Hopewell Culture National Historical Park|Mound City group]] in Ohio]]

The [[Woodland period]] of North American pre-Columbian cultures lasted from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. The term was coined in the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites between the [[Archaic period in the Americas|Archaic period]] and the [[Mississippian culture]]s. The [[Adena culture]] and the ensuing [[Hopewell tradition]] during this period built monumental earthwork architecture and established continent-spanning trade and exchange networks.

This period is considered a developmental stage without any massive changes in a short period but instead has a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leatherworking, textile manufacture, tool production, cultivation, and shelter construction. Some Woodland people continued to use spears and [[atlatl]]s until the end of the period when they were replaced by [[bow and arrow|bows and arrows]].

===Mississippian culture===
{{Main|Mississippian culture}}
The Mississippian culture was spread across the Southeast and Midwest of what is today the United States, from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the plains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Upper Midwest, although most intensively in the area along the [[Mississippi River]] and [[Ohio River]]. One of the distinguishing features of this culture was the construction of complexes of large earthen [[Platform mound|mounds]] and grand plazas, continuing the [[Mound Builders|mound-building]] traditions of earlier cultures. They grew [[maize]] and other crops intensively, participated in an extensive trade network, and had a complex stratified society. The Mississippians first appeared around 1000 CE, following and developing out of the less agriculturally intensive and less centralized Woodland period. The largest urban site of these people, [[Cahokia]]—located near modern [[East St. Louis, Illinois]]—may have reached a population of over 20,000. Other chiefdoms were constructed throughout the Southeast, and its trade networks reached to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. At its peak, between the 12th and 13th centuries, Cahokia was the most populous city in North America. (Larger cities did exist in Mesoamerica and the Andes.) [[Monks Mound]], the major ceremonial center of Cahokia, remains the largest earthen construction of the prehistoric [[New World|Americas]]. The culture reached its peak in about 1200–1400 CE, and in most places, it seems to have been in decline before the arrival of Europeans.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Many [[List of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition|Mississippian peoples]] were encountered by the expedition of [[Hernando de Soto]] in the 1540s, mostly with disastrous results for both sides. Unlike the Spanish expeditions in Mesoamerica, which conquered vast empires with relatively few men, the de Soto expedition wandered the American Southeast for four years, becoming more bedraggled, losing more men and equipment, and eventually arriving in [[Mexico]] as a fraction of its original size. The local people fared much worse though, as the fatalities of diseases introduced by the expedition devastated the populations and produced much social disruption. By the time Europeans returned a hundred years later, nearly all of the Mississippian groups had vanished, and vast swaths of their territory were virtually uninhabited.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hudson|first=Charles M.|author-link=Charles M. Hudson (author)|title=Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eapFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1|year=1997|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-5290-9}}</ref>
{{Gallery|align=center
|width=180|File:Monks Mound in July.JPG|[[Monks Mound]] of [[Cahokia]] ([[UNESCO World Heritage Site]]) in summer. The concrete staircase follows the approximate course of the ancient wooden stairs.
|File:Chromesun kincaid site 01.jpg|An artistic recreation of [[Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site|The Kincaid site]] from the prehistoric Mississippian culture as it may have looked at its peak 1050–1400 CE
|File:Moundville Archaeological Park 64.JPG|Engraved stone [[Cosmetic palette|palette]] from Moundville, illustrating two [[Horned Serpent|horned rattlesnakes]], perhaps referring to [[Southeastern Ceremonial Complex#Great Serpent|The Great Serpent]] of the [[Southeastern Ceremonial Complex]]
|File:Hampson effigypot HRoe 2006.jpg|A human head effigy pot from the Nodena site
}}

=== Ancestral Puebloans ===
{{Main|Ancestral Puebloans}}
[[File:Cliff_Palace.JPG|thumb|The [[Cliff Palace]] in [[Mesa Verde National Park]], Colorado.]]
The Ancestral Puebloans thrived in what is now the [[Four Corners]] region in the United States. It is commonly suggested that the culture of the Ancestral Puebloans emerged during the [[Early Basketmaker II Era]] during the 12th century BCE. The Ancestral Puebloans were a complex [[Oasisamerica]]n society that constructed [[kiva]]s, multi-story houses, and apartment blocks made from stone and adobe, such as the [[Cliff Palace]] of [[Mesa Verde National Park]] in Colorado and the [[Great house (pueblo)|Great Houses]] in [[Chaco Culture National Historical Park|Chaco Canyon]], [[New Mexico]]. The Puebloans also constructed a [[Great North Road (Ancestral Puebloans)|road system]] that stretched from Chaco Canyon to Kutz Canyon in the [[San Juan Basin]].{{sfn|Vivian|Hilpert|2012|p=137}} The Ancestral Puebloans are also known as "Anasazi", though the term is controversial, as the present-day [[Pueblo peoples]] consider the term to be derogatory, due to the word tracing its origins to a [[Navajo]] word meaning "ancestor enemies".<ref>Cordell, pp. 18–19</ref>

=== Hohokam ===
{{Main|Hohokam}}
The Hohokam thrived in the [[Sonoran Desert|Sonoran desert]] in what is now the U.S. state of Arizona and the Mexican state of [[Sonora]]. The Hohokam were responsible for the construction of a series of irrigation canals that led to the successful establishment of [[Phoenix, Arizona]] via the [[Salt River Project]]. The Hohokam also established complex settlements such as [[Hohokam Pima National Monument|Snaketown]], which served as an important commercial trading center. After 1375 CE, Hohokam society collapsed and the people abandoned their settlements, likely due to drought.

=== Mogollon ===
{{Main|Mogollon culture}}
The Mogollon resided in the present-day states of [[Arizona]], New Mexico, and [[Texas]] as well as [[Sonora]] and [[Chihuahua (state)|Chihuahua]]. Like most other cultures in Oasisamerica, the Mogollon constructed sophisticated kivas and cliff dwellings. In the village of [[Casas Grandes|Paquimé]], the Mogollon are revealed to have housed pens for [[scarlet macaw]]s, which were introduced from [[Mesoamerica]] through trade.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Di Peso |first1=Charles |title=Casas Grandes: A Fallen Trading Center of the Gran Chichimeca (Vols. 1–3) |date=1974 |publisher=Northland Press |location=Flagstaff, AZ}}</ref>

=== Sinagua ===
{{Main|Sinagua}}
The Sinagua were hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists who lived in central Arizona. Like the Hohokam, they constructed kivas and great houses as well as [[Mesoamerican ballcourt|ballcourts]]. Several of the Sinagua ruins include [[Montezuma Castle National Monument|Montezuma Castle]], [[Wupatki National Monument|Wupatki]], and [[Tuzigoot National Monument|Tuzigoot]].

=== Salado ===
{{Main|Salado culture}}
The Salado resided in the [[Tonto Basin]] in southeastern Arizona from 1150 CE to the 15th century. Archaeological evidence suggests that they traded with far-away cultures, as evidenced by the presence of seashells from the [[Gulf of California]] and [[macaw]] feathers from Mexico. Most of the cliff dwellings constructed by the Salado are primarily located in [[Tonto National Monument]].

=== Iroquois ===
{{Main|Iroquois}}
The [[Iroquois]] League of Nations or "People of the Long House" was a politically advanced, democratic society, which is thought by some historians to have influenced the [[United States Constitution]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Daly |first=Janet L. |year=1997 |title=The Effect of the Iroquois Constitution on the United States Constitution |url=http://www.ipoaa.com/iroquois_constitution_united_states.htm |journal=IPOAA Magazine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702105730/http://www.ipoaa.com/iroquois_constitution_united_states.htm |archive-date=2 July 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Woods |first=Thomas E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dCMcnBRKR-0C&pg=PA62 |title=33 Questions about American History You're Not Supposed to Ask |publisher=Crown Forum |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-307-34668-1 |page=62}}</ref> with the [[United States Senate|Senate]] passing a resolution to this effect in 1988.<ref>{{cite web |date=21 October 1988 |title=H. Con. Res. 331 |url=https://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/hconres331.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/hconres331.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |publisher=United States Senate}}</ref> Other historians have contested this interpretation and believe the impact was minimal or did not exist, pointing to numerous differences between the two systems and the ample precedents for the constitution in European political thought.<ref name="Shannon">{{cite book |last=Shannon |first=Timothy J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gz-ApAxMaPIC&pg=PA6 |title=Indians and Colonists at the Crossroads of Empire: The Albany Congress of 1754 |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-8014-8818-4 |pages=6–8}}</ref><ref name="Tooker">{{cite book |title=Invented indian |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=1990 |isbn=978-1-4128-2659-4 |editor-last=Clifton |editor-first=James A. |pages=107–128 |chapter=The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ARbVmr941TsC&pg=PA107}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Rakove |first=Jack |date=21 July 2005 |title=Did the Founding Fathers Really Get Many of Their Ideas of Liberty from the Iroquois? |url=http://hnn.us/articles/12974.html |work=History News Network |publisher=Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, [[George Mason University]]}}</ref>

=== Calusa ===
{{Main|Calusa}}
The Calusa were a complex paramountcy/kingdom that resided in southern [[Florida]]. Instead of agriculture, the Calusa economy relied on abundant fishing. According to Spanish sources, the "king's house" at [[Mound Key Archaeological State Park|Mound Key]] was large enough to house 2,000 people.<ref>Marquardt, W. H. (2014). Tracking the Calusa: A Retrospective. Southeastern Archaeology, 33(1), 1–24.</ref> The Calusa ultimately collapsed into extinction at around 1750 after succumbing to diseases introduced by the Spanish colonists.

=== Wichita ===
{{Main|Wichita people}}
The [[Wichita people]] were a loose confederation that consisted of sedentary agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers who resided in the eastern [[Great Plains]]. They lived in permanent settlements and even established a city called [[Etzanoa]], which had a population of 20,000 people. The city was eventually abandoned around the 18th century after it was encountered by Spanish conquistadors [[Jusepe Gutierrez]] and [[Juan de Oñate]].

===Historic tribes===
When the Europeans arrived, [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous peoples of North America]] had a wide range of lifeways from sedentary, agrarian societies to semi-nomadic [[hunter-gatherer]] societies. Many formed new [[tribe]]s or confederations in response to European colonization. These are often classified by [[cultural region]]s, loosely based on geography. These can include the following:
* [[Circumpolar peoples|Arctic]], including [[Aleut people|Aleut]], [[Inuit]], and [[Yupik peoples]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic|Subarctic]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands|Northeastern Woodlands]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands|Southeastern Woodlands]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains|Great Plains]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin|Great Basin]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau|Northwest Plateau]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast|Northwest Coast]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of California|California]]
* [[Indigenous peoples of the North American Southwest|Southwest]]

Numerous pre-Columbian societies were sedentary, such as the [[Tlingit]], [[Haida people|Haida]], [[Chumash people|Chumash]], [[Mandan]], [[Hidatsa]], and others, and some established large settlements, even cities, such as [[Cahokia]], in what is now [[Illinois]].