Prehistoric Cultures

Bering Land Bridge From this map you can see where a strip of land across the Bering Sea connected Asia and North America during the last Ice Age. The first humans came to the Americas from Asia across this land bridge, perhaps in search of large game animals. Scholars estimate that this migration took place somewhere between 14,000 and 50,000 years ago. When the Ice Age ended around 7000 B.C., melting glaciers raised the level of the seas so that water covered the land bridge.

Process of Movement

Ice Age creates huge glaciers

Ocean levels fall

Bering Strait becomes dry creating a land bridgefrom Asia to Alaska

Early Asians cross the land bridge and settle in America

Pal eolithic Era

• About 11,000 B.C. – 6,000 B.C.

• Followed mammoths and giant bison (nomadic – moved around)

• Used spears made with flint to hunt

Archaic Era• 6,000 B.C. – A.D. 700• Ice Age ended by this time• Used atlatl, a hand-held spear thrower to

hunt (more force/power to kill)• Traveled in small groups called bands

(hunter-gatherers)• Had more tools than Paleo-Indians• Developed use of the bow and arrow at

the end of the era

Late Prehistoric/Formative Era

• A.D. 700 – A.D. 1500’s

• Many cultures now developed

• Some lived in permanent villages and farmed

• Some still hunter-gatherers

• Plains Indians mastered the bow and arrow

• Europeans arrived in Texas

Terms To Know

• Hunter-gatherers: people who survive searching for wild plants and animals

• Prehistory: time before written records

• Artifacts: objects made by humans that show how they once lived

• Pictographs: pictures drawn or painted on cave walls, ledges, or cliffs

• Petroglyphs: carvings made in rock

More Terms• Archaeologist: Scientist who study and

learn about past cultures from the artifacts they find

• Carbon-14 dating: used to determine the age of bones, firewood, and seed found at ancient campsites (formerly living things)

• DNA testing: genetic testing on ancient bones and tissue samples (age, gender, height, even disease or cause of death)

Notes Summary

Using the words to know list you will create a narrative about prehistoric culture. You will need to use at least 5 words from the list and any other information from your notes that you would like to use.