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Thus they were not as devastated by them as Native Americans were. First, they had some immunities to their own diseases. Several factors gave the Europeans the advantage in these conflicts. To do so, they often fought Native American tribal nations for the land. The Europeans started colonizing the Americas in order to cultivate new farmlands and create new jobs for the growing populations of Europe. They wiped out the populations of many native cities. These unfamiliar diseases spread quickly among Native Americans. The Europeans brought diseases with them, including smallpox and measles. Their fine architecture is still greatly admired.Įuropean invasions of the Americas began with Columbus's voyages to the "New World" in 1492.
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American Indian cities were as big as the cities in Europe and Asia at that time. Some were burial sites of honored leaders. Most of these mounds were flat on top, with palaces and temples built on them. In South America, llamas provided transportation on land.įrom the present-day region of the mid-western United States to southern Peru in South America, centers of government were marked by enormous mounds of earth. And they used cargo rafts and other boats to ship their goods from one trading point to another. They established extensive trade routes across the continents. Many tribes on the coasts hunted sea mammals from boats and caught fish, using a variety of efficient methods.Īfter 2000 BC, some Native Americans developed states, each governing thousands of people. They regularly burned off patches of land to keep it in pasture, so the animals would come to graze. They raised turkeys, llamas, and guinea pigs for food and they hunted deer and bison. As early as about 5500 BC, tribes in Mexico cultivated corn and squash.
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Ten thousand years ago, when the Ice Age ended, changes in climate and increasing populations inspired some Native American tribes to experiment with growing different crops. There are as many different tribal nations in the Americas as there are nations in Europe, Asia, or Africa, and there is as much variety among them. Over thousands of years, as they migrated across the continents, American Indians have developed a wide range of languages, customs, and civilizations. Some archaeologists (scientists who study the remains of past human lives) believe it might have been about 12000 BC. It is not known when the first people arrived in the Americas. As early as 1000 BC, they had covered nearly the entire continent. Their descendants explored along the west coast of North America. Many thousands of years ago, late in the Ice Age, humans journeyed across the Bering land bridge, from Asia into Alaska.