Earliest Americans Flashcards
Q: This is the period in Earth’s history when huge sheets of ice covered large parts of Earth’s surface?
A: Ice Age
Q: What is a small strip of land that connects two large land masses?
A: Land Bridge
Q: What was the land bridge that connected Asia and North America?
A: Beringia
Q: Why can’t people walk from Asia to North America today?
A: Beringia is underwater
Q: What were the small groups who fed themselves by hunting and gathering plants called?
A: Hunter-gatherers
Q: What are the prehistoric elephant-like animals called?
A: Mammoths and mastodons
Q: What are the early hunters that had no permanent homes and followed herds of animals called?
A: Nomads
Q: Today, how do scientists believe the earliest Americans arrived in the Americas from Asia?
A: By boat on the Pacific Ocean.
Q: Why couldn’t the first settlers in North America move very far inland?
A: There were huge ice sheets in the way.
Q: At the end of the ice age, what happened when all of the ice began to melt?
A: The oceans rose.
Q: What made it possible for the Nomads in the Americas to stay in place for long periods of time?
A: They learned to farm.
Q: What was the first crop the Native Americans in Mexico learned how to grow?
A: Corn/Maize
What are the soft, colorful lights that appear in the northern lands?
The Northern Lights
What is another name for the northern land where the Inuit people lived.
Frozen Desert
T or F: The Inuit people are related to the Beringian hunter-gatherers.
False
What does the word Inuit mean?
the people
Since there are no trees in the Arctic, the Inuit used ______________.
driftwood
T or F: The Inuit made fishhooks, knives, and other small tools from bones and flint.
True
What shelters did the Inuit build?
igloos
What kind of boats did the Inuit travel on?
kayaks
How did the Inuit carry heavy loads.
on sleds pulled by dogs
What is a native person who lives on a rock ledge or cliff wall?
cliff dweller
What is a deep valley between mountains, cut through the rock by river water?
canyon
What years did the elders worry that there would not be enough food?
dry years
What were the years where the corn grows tall and the squash grows thick known as?
wet years
Which cliff dwelling native Americans who lived in the American Southwest?
Pueblo
Today’s Pueblo live in where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet?
The Four Corners
The Ancestral Pueblo were skilled basket weavers and potters.
True
What is the brick that the Ancient Pueblo used to make their buildings?
adobe
What Native Americans built buildings and houses on large heaps of dirt?
Mound Builders
How did the mound builders build the mounds?
They used baskets to collect the dirt and heaped it into huge piles.
How did many of the Mound Dwellers die?
The Europeans brought diseases with them that they couldn’t fight off.
In Spanish, what does the word pueblo mean?
village
Why do scientists believe that the Pueblo people are related to the ancient Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellers?
Their houses looked similar.
What did the Hopi natives build their houses on?
mesas
Why did the Hopi build their houses on the tops of mesas?
To protect themselves from enemy attacks.
How did the Hopi get to different levels of their homes?
ladders
What does the word Hopi mean?
peaceful people
Today, most of the Hopi live in the state of ________________.
Arizona
T or F: The Hopi and the Zuni are both Pueblo.
True
T or F: Even though they are both descendants of the Ancient Pueblo, the Hopi and Zuni speak the same language.
False
The Navajo’s call themselves Dine’ which means _____________.
the people
Which tribe built domed houses out of adobe?
Navajo
What European country introduced horses and sheep to North America?
Spain
Who makes up the largest Native American nation in the United States?
Navajo
What dwellings did the Apache make with buffalo hides?
tepees
Who were the only Native Americans more powerful than the Apache?
Comanche
What figurative phrase was coined when the Apache made peace with the Spaniards?
burying the hatchet
What tribes were expert horse riders?
Apache and Comanche
Why did the Mound Builders’ way of life end in the 1500s and 1600s?
The Europeans brought diseases that they couldn’t fight off.
What word means a loosely organized group of states or tribes.
confederacy
Whose villages were similar to the communities built by the Mound Builders?
Creek
T or F: Members of the Seminole Nation are descendants of the Mound Builders.
True
Where were many of the Cherokee and Seminoles forced to move?
Oklahoma
In the late 1700s and 1800s who were the only Native American people who kept written records?
Cherokee
What Cherokee man created the Cherokee written language?
Sequoyah
T or F: Just like the Greeks, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Romans the Cherokee told many legends that explained the world.
true
