The First People Mexico Shape Our Modern World?
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How did the prehistoric societies of early New The First People Mexico shape our modern world? This photograph of Navajo Indians passing through Canyon de Chelly was taken by Edward S. Curtis in 1904. It is one of more than 2,000 images included in his 20-volume The North American Indian. Curtis studied and photographed at least 80 tribes in his travels throughout the country. How do the Navajo riders compare to their surroundings? 9,500 B.C.–9,000 B.C. Clovis culture develops. Timeline of Events 11,000 b.c. 10,000 b.c. 9,000 b.c. 8,000 b.c. 9,000 B.C.–8,000 B.C. Folsom culture develops. 44 Chapter The First People 2Comprehension Strategy Preview for a Purpose In Chapter 1, you learned that good readers preview text before they read. In this chapter, you will learn to preview for different purposes. You will preview to check facts about prehistoric people. You will also preview to predict and answer questions about the first groups of people in New Mexico. 8,000 B.C.–200 B.C. Cochise culture develops. 100 B.C.–A.D. 1300 Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) people live in Southwest. 200 b.c. a.d. 1200 a.d. 1300 a.d. 1500 A.D. 1200 Athabascan people A.D. 1539 Spanish explorers (Navajo and Apache) 200 B.C.–A.D. 1200 arrive in New Mexico. Mogollon people live migrate to the Southwest. in the Southwest. 45 LESSON 1 Prehistoric People housands of years ago, small bands, or groups, of people Key Ideas roamed the land in what is now New Mexico. They were Tnomads, which means they moved from place to place. They • Archaeologists study were constantly on the move in search of food. They gathered plants prehistoric people by and hunted large animals like the mammoth. examining the things they left behind. • The Paleo people were The First People Arrive nomadic and hunted big game. Scientists do not agree on when the first people came to North • The Archaic people America or how they got here. Most agree, however, that people were the earliest farmers were living in the area we know as New Mexico around 11,000 B.C. in New Mexico. Because the people who lived here did not leave any written records, they are called prehistoric. Without diaries, newspapers, pictures, or letters, how do we know about them? What can we discover about Key Terms their lives? How do we even know they were here? archaeology As you read in Chapter 1, we can study artifacts for clues about the people who used them. Animal remains can also give us clues about atlatl what animals lived at a certain time. By carefully studying these clues, culture we can piece together New Mexico’s history. indigenous Archaeology is the study of past people and cultures through a mano careful examination of artifacts. Over a long period of time, wind metate blows dirt over things people leave behind. Sometimes plants grow nomad on top of them or water pushes mud over them. Archaeologists paleo unearth, or excavate, artifacts and study them to learn how people prehistoric lived in the past. Comprehension Strategy Preview to Check Facts Archaeologists dig in the earth to discover artifacts that will help them learn about the past. What kind of artifacts do you think they might uncover? 46 Chapter 2 Examples of these manmade items The Paleo people traveled south include spear tips, pottery, jewelry, and from the area we know as Alaska. baskets. Archaeologists also look for the They spread throughout North and remains of ancient homes, burial sites, South America. When they came to Sometimes and garbage dumps. They want to learn what is now New Mexico, they found prehistoric people as much as they can about how people a land much different than it is today. once lived. By the time they arrived here, glaciers are called pre- Since prehistoric people did not had started to melt, creating rivers and Columbian because have written records, archaeology is lakes. Some areas of New Mexico that they lived here in one of the few ways to learn about are now dry desert were covered with the time before ancient cultures. European explorers swamps, forests, and grasslands. Christopher were the first to write down Columbus arrived information about the indigenous Few Clues Left Behind in America. Because people they met. Indigenous means Artifacts such as stone tools and native. The journals kept by explorers the skeletons of large animals tell of Columbus thought describe the customs, dress, and the existence of Paleo people. Because he had reached practices of native peoples. Many of of their constant movement, Paleo India, he used these historical records exist today. people left few other clues behind. the term Indians Archaeologists do not know what to describe the The First Groups the houses of Paleo people looked Prehistoric people are divided like or even if they had houses. And people he met in the into two groups—Paleo people and Scientists do not know if Paleo people New World. Archaic people. Archaeologists call the had a written language. Scholars think first people to live in North America knowledge and traditions were likely Paleo people or Paleo Indians. Paleo passed from generation to generation means ancient. through storytelling. Paleo People Historians are not entirely sure when Paleo people first arrived in North America. They estimate it was at least 12,000 years ago. It was the end of the last ice age (a long, cold period of time when snow and ice covered most of the earth). Temperatures were much colder than they are now. Ocean waters were frozen in huge sheets of ice called glaciers. The sea level was lower and more land was exposed. As a result, many scholars believe that the first people in North America walked across the land from Asia to North America, following the animals they hunted. Early civilizations used spears to hunt and kill large game animals for food. What tasks are these prehistoric people doing? The First People 47 Discovery at Folsom The first evidence of Paleo people in New Mexico was discovered in northeastern New Mexico. In 1908, George McJunkin, a former slave and cowhand discovered some very large animal bones on the ranch where he worked. He believed the bones to be the PORTRAIT remains of an extinct animal. McJunkin tried for years to get George McJunkin archaeologists to visit the ranch, but no (1851–1922) one came until the late 1920s. By then, George McJunkin was born in McJunkin had died. The archaeologists Midway, Texas, in 1851. He and his who finally went to the site were family were slaves on a cattle ranch amazed at what they found. Deep in there. When the Civil War ended and a pit were the bones of several giant all the slaves were freed, McJunkin bison. Lodged in some of the bones continued to work on the ranch. were spear points. The spear points— At the age of 17, McJunkin left called Folsom points—were evidence Texas to join a cattle drive to Kansas. From Kansas, he eventually made that humans killed large bison for food. his way to the Cimarron Valley in northeastern New Mexico. McJunkin Big-Game Hunters felt comfortable there because New The abundance of plants and Mexico was much more diverse (having animals was good for the people many different people) than other parts because it provided them with a source of the country. McJunkin worked as a cowboy of food. They hunted large animals, for several ranchers. He helped train such as woolly mammoths, giant other ranch hands to ride and rope. ground sloths, saber-tooth tigers, large In return, they taught him how to bears, and giant bison. Paleo people read and write. The ability to read traveled in small family groups. When sparked McJunkin’s interest in science, they killed an animal, they set up camp, especially geology and astronomy. He butchered the animal, and moved on in read encyclopedias and science books search of another meal. They did not to learn as much as possible. stay in one place very long. Because of his scientific knowledge, McJunkin was sure he had discovered an extinct animal when he uncovered Scientists believe bones on the ranch where he worked in mastodons lived 1908. He would never know, however, mostly in the eastern just how important his discovery was. United States and in He died in 1922. Four years later, bones lowland regions with from the ranch were finally taken to the warmer climates. Colorado Museum of Natural History. Anthropologists there determined that they were evidence of prehistoric Indians in New Mexico. Archaeologists use the term kill site to describe the areas where ancient animal remains are found. What other artifacts do you think might be found at kill sites? 48 Chapter 2 The Clovis Point Clovis and Folsom People Twenty years after McJunkin The Clovis and Folsom people are discovered the ancient kill site in Paleo people. They are believed to be northeastern New Mexico, a teenaged some of the earliest people to have Boy Scout named Ridgley Whiteman lived in what is now New Mexico. The made a similar discovery near Clovis. artifacts they left behind tell a story However, the bones Whiteman found about hunters who used rock or animal turned out to be that of a mammoth. In horns to chip away the edges of stones addition to the bones, Whiteman also to make spear points. The people tied uncovered a spear point that became the points to strong, thin sticks to make known as the Clovis point.