Chapter 1- New World Beginnings
-The Shaping of North America
. originally Earth had only one super continent, this continent split into several smaller ones, one of which would later be called North America
. as millions of years passed North America’s geography began to change, mountain ranges sprung up, rivers flowed across the vast land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the entire continent was changing
. two million years ago an ice age swept across the world, North America was part of it, it transformed and shaped the way North America looks today, as the glaciers began melting 10,000 years ago new lakes and rivers became present, such as the Great Lakes that still remain enormous today
. North America was being shaped by nature, and it would remain the same for centuries
-Peopling the Americas
. the first humans to come to America came by land, the ice age caused the sea level to drop, revealing a land bridge that connected North America and Eurasia
. Asian hunters following animals were the first to step foot on the land of the vast continent
. North and South America became isolated once more as the sea level returned to normal when the ice age passed, this denied the rest of the world entry, until much later when the Europeans would discover the New World
. when Europeans arrived in 1492 in search of the Indies, an estimated 54 million people were already living over the wide spread of the two continents
. during the years of isolation, many tribes
Perhaps one of the most important circumstances of the New World was the varying climate. The North American continent was not the same as its southern
These nomads continued moving all the way to South America. By the time Europeans arrived in America, there were already at least forty to fifty million indigenous people inhabiting the land (Faber 4-5). Other explorers, from Norway, Greenland, and Iceland reached America centuries before Columbus (Faber ix). Although these people attempted to live in this new land, they didn’t stay long, and failed to create a lasting historical impact (Faber 20-26).
4. The Great Ice Age thrust down over North America and scoured the present day American Midwest.
1.The geological and geographical conditions that set the stage for North American history is that the earth formed slowly,10 million years ago North America was sculpted ,and the continent was anchored in a north eastern corner by a canadian shield.Around 2 million years ago the great ice age began,the ice sheets were about 2 miles thick crept from the polar region , in North America the glaciers carpeted most of canada and the U.S., parts of europe,Asia,and the americas werecovered with a blanket of snow.
American history is in a process of continuous change when it comes to ideas, infrastructure, and of course, land. While many argue against the idea of the detrimental effects environmental destruction, numerous events in history have known to show otherwise such as in the Columbian Exchange, the Industrial Revolution, and Westward migration.
Anthropological theories concerning the peopling of North America is a topic that is widely debated. By far, Western scientists seem to agree that: “As a result of the vast amount of water that was locked up in glacial ice toward the end of the Pleistocene era, there was a worldwide drop in sea level of as much as 400 feet” (Sutton 19), creating a land link, known as the Beringia, between Asia and Alaska. Starting from this point about the land link, we find that Elias’s article “First Americans Lived on Bering Land Bridge for Thousands of Years,” is the most agreeable theory about the peopling of North America.
About 225 million years ago, according to the theory of “Pangaea,” the world was once a single supercontinent that contained all the dry land. Approximately 10 million years ago, North America was shaped by the majestic Canadian Shield. About 2 million years ago, in North America, the grand glaciers laid the land of Canada and the United States, southbound as far as from Pennsylvania all the way to the Pacific Northwest. Recently, about 135 million to 25 million years ago, four massive ranges—the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, and the Coast Ranges, arose in western North America. About 35000 years ago, the ancestors of the Native Americans, the nomadic Asian hunters, first
During the Ice Age, the water froze into massive glaciers and exposed a land bridge that connected Eurasia and North America.
About 200 million years ago there was one big continent called Pangaea. They believed that, this landmass began to separate. They believed that the Atlantic Ocean formed, dividing Africa and Eurasia from the Americas. Over the next several million years plants and animals changed and made to separate biological worlds. It wasn’t until Christopher Columbus and his crew sailed to the Americas in October 1492, they started interacting with each other.
In 1492 Columbus discovered the “new world” which is now known as the Americas today. Furthermore, in the 1700 people from the English origin traveled across the sea to North America to start a new life. When they got to North America the people settled in two regions, the Chesapeake and the New England region. Even though these people came from the same place they thrived in two different societies. Some of the countless reasons why these two regions are different from each other are religion, ways of life, and economics.
Historically speaking, homosapiens have inhabited the North America for millions of years as they came over on Pangaea’s land bridges. However, it wasn't until Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas and the Great Migration, that the population of North America began to stabilize and grow to form the two distinct regions. These two distinct regions eventually became known as the New England colonies and the Chesapeake Bay colonies. Some of the differences between the two regions included motivation of colonists, immigration patterns, and settlement patterns.
Five hundred years ago, European explorers landed in North America. After trying to locate a new route to Asia across the Atlantic Ocean, they found a continent they did not know existed. Three different groups traveled to the New World, starting in 1584 (Basu, Tanya). The last group included Gov. John White, he had to return to England to submit his report to the Queen. John White tried several times to return to Virginia, but it wasn’t until a few years later he was finally able to return to his new home. In 1584, when White was finally able to return, the land was barren and deserted of people. This baffling revelation began one of the greatest mysteries of all time.
Indians arrived in America some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Archeological findings and Radiocarbon testing suggested that the prehistoric people who populated the Americas were hunters following the herds of wooly mammoths. They walked from Siberia across a land bridge into Alaska. They headed south toward warmer climates, slaughtering the mammoths as they went. As the glaciers melted, the oceans rose and covered this land bridge, creating the present-day Bering Strait and separating Alaska from Russia. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived, they were millions of what might be called First Americans or Amerindians occupying the two continents of Americas. The first noted documentation of the Beringia theory of the peopling of North America was by Jose de
Paleo Indians were one of the first tribes who moved into the continent while chasing
After the Acadian Orogeny the continent of North America collided with Africa which was at the time of Pangea. Then the continents separated and opened up a new ocean called the Atlantic Ocean but there was no evidence found in the region to prove this geological event so the time missing is called an unconformity. During this time the region was just experiencing weathering