History of Native American Indians

 

INDIANS OF AMERICA

Despite the history of Native Americans is the focus of the U.S., many are still uninformed on this matter, in fact, American and Canadian school systems give only small hints of this rich and interesting culture represented by the legacy of India.

By focusing on a special breed as its central theme, it is necessary to consider the entire span of human history, from prehistory to the present day. This is, again, hundreds of different tribes, both existing and extinct, each with its own history, population (lineage) and culture.

The studies include various sectors of Indian history, archeology, ethnology, sociology, geography, politics, religion, linguistics, etc..

If we are here today to talk about habits, customs, traditions, rituals, religious cults of Indian culture has with academics, authors and cartographers earlier, men like Powell, Hodge, Kroeber, Swanton, Collier, Josephy, Driver and Highwater, who dedicated their lives to research and preservation of history and culture of Native Americans.

During the long course of centuries, after the migration of men to the New World until the end of the glacial period, about .000 in 8 BC, and for a subsequent period, the primary mode of living was made by the hunting of large game. Most nomadic hunters dressed in skins and furs, and took refuge in caves, under ledges and in huts made of branches and used to chase the game Pleistocene: hairy mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers, American lions, camels, bison the big horns, short-faced bears, wolves savage, giant beavers, giant armadillos, tapirs nosed curved, musk oxen, wild horses, as well as some smaller mammals. Anthropologists have learned what they know of the first Indian on the basis of skeletons and objects found in the places they lived and places of hunting.

After the Indians appeared between 25,000 BC Paleolithic technology. They were used malleable stones, especially flint, flint and obsidian, to make functional tools, such as scrapers, axes and spears, tips, particularly important for hunting. The Paleo-Indian phases are distinguished by the type of spear point that usually brings the name of the area where it was discovered the first time. The main steps are: Sandia, Clovis, Folsom and Plano. The fact that these points have not been found on the Asian side of Bering Strait indicates that the technological evolution that concerns him, came to the New World.

During the final withdrawal of the northern glaciers between 9,000 and 5,000 years BC, many of the large mammals, from which depended the livelihood of paleo-Indians, disappeared, first in lower latitudes, then also in the North. This example of the extinction of big game is one of the great mysteries of the Paleolithic period and there are various theories to search for an explanation. Probably the cause was climate change. The glaciers melted, they created throughout the continent, high humidity and with lush vegetation, rivers, lakes and abundant wetlands.

Over the centuries, the climate had warmed and the environment had gradually dried up causing seasonal and regional variations that may have made it increasingly difficult to animal life. However, the other large mammals had survived the previous interglacial periods and climate change. Maybe this time the difference was in the presence of a new super predator: man, with his sharp stone points, his cunning and his organization.

The men sought food and shelter, they endeavored to develop new technologies, were proud of their work; dreamed and acted, and survived. The first Indians were adapted. Over the centuries, the climate, flora and fauna have evolved, from the Ice Age through the era of post-glacial watershed, until the new configurations of the regions. Generation after generation, the Indians gradually broadened their base of life and invent new technologies.

With progress comes the cultural diversity: Indians in different parts of the continent progressed in different ways. In archaeological terms, this means that each region has its own cultural sequence and its categories (cultures, periods, phases, traditions, etc..), In fact, every archaeological site has its own classification system, and this makes the study of Indian prehistory even more difficult.

However, to express degrees of development need different terms. In Central America, for example, where the Indians reached the highest level of organized life, as they built the city, uses the term "classical" refers to a climax that involves cultural divisions as "pre-classical" and "post-classical" .

Yet another term, which refers to the culmination of a culture, that of '"golden age", is sometimes used for advanced cultures of the North of Mexico, like that of the Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon of the Southwest or " Mound Builders "of the East .. It must be remembered also another cultural classification. Some scholars use the term "meso Indian" instead of "training" or "pre-classical" to distinguish the period when agriculture was introduced in Mesoamerica (between 7,000 and 5,000 BC) from the archaic culture of other places on the continent .