P a r t transformations of North America

CHAPTER
1

Colliding Worlds, 1450–1600
9
0
500 1,000 kilometers
0
500
1,000 miles
N
S
E
W
Ice sheets, c. 16,000
B.C.
Ice sheets, c. 12,000
B.C.
Tundra
Conifer forest
Deciduous forest
Prairie
Desert
Migration route
(after Tanner)
Vegetation zones:
Using a global projection, the cartographer has
placed North America in the center of the map,
but parts of four other continents appear.
Evidence indicates that peoples came
from Asia to the Americas during the
Ice Age, when the sea level was much lower
than today and a large land bridge-labeled
Beringia on the map-connected the continents.
As scholars learn more about the
advances and retreats of the ice sheets,
the camping sites of the migrating
peoples, and changes in vegetation zones,
a more complete picture of the peopling
of the Americas will emerge.
Current scholarship holds that the migrating
peoples initially traveled on a narrow strip of
ice-free land along the Pacific coast. As the
area between the Cordilleran and Laurentide
ice sheets lost its cover of ice, probably between
14,000 and 12,000
B.C.
, migrants may also have
used the inland routes from present-day
Alaska to the American interior.
Many groups, accustomed to
living at the ocean’s edge,
probably continued along
this route, pushing ever
southward into South America.
160
°W
160
°E
120
°E
80
°E
60
°N
40
°N
20
°N
0°
120°W
40°
E
0°
40
°W
80°
W
PAC IF I CO CE AN biibAT LAN TIC biibO CE AN biibGulf of
Mexico
Bering
Sea
Caribbean Sea
Pack ice
25,000–12,000 B.C.
Land bridge open
S can din avian biibi c es he e t
L a u rent id e i c
e sh biibe e
t
G re en land biibi c es he e t
C
o
r
d
il
le
r
a
n
ic
e
s
h
e
e
t
A LAS KA
JA PAN UR OPE bbA SI A
N OR TH
A ME RI CA bbSOUTH
AMERICA
a
p
pr
ox
im
a
t
e
ic
e-
ag
e
co
a
s
tl
i
ne
MAP 1.1
The Ice Age and the Settling of the Americas
Some sixteen thousand years ago, a sheet of ice covered much of Europe and North America. The ice lowered the level of the world’s oceans, which created abroad bridge of land between Siberia and Alaska. Using that land bridge, hunting peoples from Asia migrated to North America as they pursued woolly mammoths and other large game animals and sought ice-free habitats. By 10,000 BC, the descendants of these migrant peoples had moved south to present-day Florida and central Mexico. In time, they would settle as far south as the tip of South America and as far east as the Atlantic coast of North America.

10

Download 1.72 Mb.

Share with your friends: