Editing Pre-Columbian era (section)

===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.