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Paleo-Indian
Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term ''Paleolithic''.''Paleolithic'' specifically refers to the period between million years ago and the end of the Pleistocene in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is not used in New World archaeology. Traditional theories suggest that big-animal hunters crossed the Bering Strait from North Asia into the Americas over a land bridge (Beringia). This bridge existed from 45,000 to 12,000 BCE (47,000–14,000 BP). Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. From BCE ( BP), ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithic Stage
In the sequence of cultural stages first proposed for the archaeology of the Americas by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, as post-glacial hunter gatherers spread through the Americas. The stage derived its name from the first appearance of flaked stone tools. The term Paleo-Indian is an alternative, generally indicating much the same period. This stage was conceived as embracing two major categories of the stone technology: (1) unspecialized and the largely unformulated core and flake industries, with percussion the dominant and perhaps only technique employed, and (2) industries exhibiting more advanced "blade" techniques of stoneworking, with specialized fluted or unfluted lanceolate points the most characteristic artifact types. Throughout South America, there are stone tool traditions of the lithic stage, such as the "fluted fishtail", that reflect localized adaptations to the divers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peopling Of The Americas
It is believed that the peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago). These populations expanded south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and spread rapidly southward, occupying both North and South America no later than 14,000 years ago, and possibly even before 20,000 years ago. The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by proposed linguistic factors, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA. While there is general agreement that the Americas were first settled from Asia, the pattern of migration and the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially wild edible plants but also insects, Fungus, fungi, Honey hunting, honey, Eggs as food, bird eggs, or anything safe to eat, or by hunting game (pursuing or trapping and killing Wildlife, wild animals, including Fishing, catching fish). This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are omnivores. Hunter-gatherer Society, societies stand in contrast to the more Sedentism, sedentary Agrarian society, agricultural societies, which rely mainly on cultivating crops and raising domesticated animals for food production, although the boundaries between the two ways of living are not completely distinct. Hunting and gathering was humanity's original and most enduring successful Competition (biology), competitive adaptation in the nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The West Coast Of North America
The human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along the ice free coastal islands of British Columbia. This was followed by the development of significant List of pre-Columbian cultures, pre-Columbian cultures and population densities and later arrival of the European ethnic groups, European explorers and European colonization of the Americas, colonization of the coast. The west coast of North America today is home to some of the largest and most important companies in the world,Ranked by 2007 market valuation, nearly 10% of the 200 largest publicly traded companies in the world are based on the west coast of North America: Microsoft, Chevron, Cisco Systems, Intel, Wells Fargo, Google, Amgen, Hewlett-Packard, Qualcomm, Oracle, Apple Computer, eBay, Walt Disney, Yahoo, Washington Mutual, and Occidental Petroleum. (''See'Top ranked publicly traded companies Accessed 2008-02- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Projectile Point
In archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have been kept in the hand, such as knives, spears, axes, hammers, and maces. Stone tools, including projectile points, were often lost or discarded and are relatively plentiful, especially at archaeological sites. They provide useful clues to the human past, including prehistoric trade. A distinctive form of point, identified though lithic analysis of the way it was made, is often a key diagnostic factor in identifying an archaeological industry or culture. Scientific techniques exist to track the specific kinds of rock or minerals that were used to make stone tools in various regions back to their original sources. As well as stone, projectile points were also made of worked wood, bone, antler, horn, or ivory; all of these are less common in the Am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent by area after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with their Lists of islands of the Americas, associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon basin, Amazon, St. Lawrence River–Great Lakes, Mississippi River System, Mississippi, and Río de la Plata Basin, La Plata basins. Since the Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes Middle America (Americas), Middle America (comprising the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico) and Northern America. North America covers an area of about , representing approximately 16.5% of Earth's land area and 4.8% of its total surface area. It is the third-largest continent by size after Asia and Africa, and the list of continents and continental subregions by population, fourth-largest continent by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. , North America's population was estimated as over 592 million people in list of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America, 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's popula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glyptodont
Glyptodonts are an extinct clade of large, heavily armoured armadillos, reaching up to in height, and maximum body masses of around 2 tonnes. They had short, deep skulls, a fused vertebral column, and a large bony carapace made up of hundreds of individual scutes. Some glyptodonts had Tail club, clubbed tails, similar to Ankylosauridae, ankylosaurid dinosaurs. The earliest widely recognised fossils of glyptodonts in South America are known from the late Eocene, around 38 million years ago, and they spread to southern North America after the continents became connected around 2.7 million years ago. The best-known genus within the group is ''Glyptodon.'' Glyptodonts were historically considered to constitute the distinct family Glyptodontidae, with their relationships to modern armadillos being contested. In 2016, an analysis of the mitochondrial genome of ''Doedicurus'' found that it was, in fact, nested within the modern armadillos as the sister group of a clade consisting of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beringia
Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 70th parallel north, 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Peninsula, Chukchi and Kamchatka peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States and Yukon in Canada. The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range. At various times, it formed a land bridge referred to as the Bering land bridge, that was up to wide at its greatest extent and which covered an area as large as British Columbia and Alberta together, totaling about , allowing biological dispersal to occur between Asia and North America. Today, the only land that is visible from the central part of the Bering land bridge are the Diomede Islands, the Pribilof Isla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithic Flake
In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock (geology), rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure,"Andrefsky, W. (2005) ''Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis''. 2d Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press and may also be referred to as simply a ''flake'', or collectively as debitage. The objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of flakes, is known as a lithic core, core.Andrefsky, W. (2005) ''Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis''. 2d Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Once the proper tool stone has been selected, a percussor or pressure flaker (e.g., an antler Tine (structural), tine) is used to direct a sharp blow, or apply sufficient force, respectively, to the surface of the stone, often on the edge of the piece. The energy of this blow propagates through the material, often (termination type, but not always) producing a Hertzian cone of force which causes the rock to fracture in a controllable fashion. Since c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indigenous Peoples Of The Americas
In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of the Americas as such. These populations exhibit significant diversity; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers, while others practiced agriculture and aquaculture. Various Indigenous societies developed complex social structures, including pre-contact monumental architecture, organized city, cities, city-states, chiefdoms, state (polity), states, monarchy, kingdoms, republics, confederation, confederacies, and empires. These societies possessed varying levels of knowledge in fields such as Pre-Columbian engineering in the Americas, engineering, Pre-Columbian architecture, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, History of writing, writing, physics, medicine, Pre-Columbian agriculture, agriculture, irrigation, geology, minin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
