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Native American Physical Environment Research Paper

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The physical environment greatly impacted Native American cultures and their ways of life in the Great Basin, Southwest, Great Plains, and Mississippi River Valley regions. They constructed complex monuments and buildings, thrived on cultivating whatever their region of land had to offer, dealt with climate changes, and also dealt with the European settlers. The first Americans lived lives that revolved around nature and the resources their environment gave them. Without its impact, they would not be able to survive. Throughout all regions above Mexico, Native Americans from all different tribes built structures that were useful to them. They built burial mounds all across the Mississippi River Valley and other regions. These mounds came in all shapes and sizes, and some even had figures of …show more content…

In general, they were the first people to cultivate chocolate, corn, cotton, peanuts, pineapples, potatoes, rubber, quinine, tobacco, and vanilla. But, in the frozen tundra of Western Alaska, Native Americans dealt with arctic conditions. They relied on hunting and fishing. They hunted seals, whales, and other marine mammals. These animals were not only useful as food, but as skinned layers of clothing that kept them warm in such climate. However, in milder regions along the northwest Pacific Coast, the people there could produce food with very little effort. The physical environment impacted them by providing marine life for fishing. In the Southwest, some of the earliest farming societies developed. Since the environment was desert, Native Americans developed complex irrigation systems for farming. They even dug wells, built ponds, and built dams to collect rainwater to water their crops in the desert weather. All across the different regions and climates where the First American lived, they all adapted to thrive in whatever environment they were dealing

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