AP® United States History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/us-history/units/1/1-2)
Unit 1 · Topic 1.2
1.2 Native American Societies Before European Contact
Before Europeans arrived, Native peoples in North America built very different societies, each adapted to its environment. The spread of maize (corn) farming from Mexico encouraged settled villages and larger populations, while in dry or cold regions people stayed mobile and lived by hunting, fishing and gathering.
Key terms
- maize cultivation
- Pueblo peoples
- mobile lifestyles
- Mississippian culture (Cahokia)
- permanent villages
Maize changed everything it reached
Maize was first domesticated in what is now southern Mexico thousands of years ago. Over many centuries farming spread north into the Southwest and later into the river valleys of the Mississippi and the East.
Farming produced a reliable food surplus, meaning more food than the farmers themselves needed. A surplus lets people stay in one place, store food, grow in number and support leaders, priests and craft workers. That is why maize-growing regions tended to have permanent towns and more complex social and political structures than regions without farming.
Region by region
| Region | Environment | How people lived |
|---|---|---|
| Southwest (Pueblo peoples, such as the Hopi and Zuni) | Dry, hot, with little rain | Irrigated fields of maize, beans and squash; multistory adobe and stone towns (pueblos); permanent settlement |
| Great Basin (Shoshone, Ute, Paiute) | Desert with scarce water and game | Small, mobile bands that moved with the seasons, gathering seeds, nuts and roots and hunting small animals |
| Great Plains (Lakota, Pawnee, Mandan and others) | Grasslands with huge bison herds | Many groups followed the bison on foot; some, along rivers, also farmed in villages |
| Northwest Coast and California (Chinook, Tlingit and Kwakwaka'wakw in the Northwest; Chumash and many others in California) | Rainy northern coast rich in salmon and cedar; mild California coast and valleys rich in acorns, fish and shellfish | Hunting, fishing and gathering instead of large-scale farming, yet many permanent villages; in the Northwest, plank houses, ranked societies and gift-giving feasts called potlatches |
| Mississippi Valley (Mississippian culture) | Fertile river floodplains | Large-scale maize farming, big towns with earthen mounds, chiefdoms, long-distance trade |
| Northeast and Atlantic coast (Haudenosaunee or Iroquois, Algonquian peoples, Powhatan) | Forests, rivers and coast | Mixed farming, hunting, fishing and gathering; permanent or seasonal villages; longhouses among the Iroquois |
Cahokia and the Mississippian world
The Mississippian culture built the largest towns north of Mexico. Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis, was at its height around 1050 to 1200 and may have held 10,000 to 20,000 people. Its Monks Mound is the largest earthen structure built in the Americas north of Mexico. Cahokia had a powerful ruling class and traded goods like copper and shells over long distances.
Cahokia declined and was largely abandoned by about 1350, well before Europeans arrived. Historians point to environmental strain, flooding, war and political breakdown, and the exact causes are still debated.
The Northeast and the Atlantic seaboard
In the Northeast, many peoples grew the 'Three Sisters', maize, beans and squash, planted together, and also hunted and fished. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) lived in long, shared bark houses called longhouses and formed a confederacy of five nations: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. Iroquois society was matrilineal, meaning family descent passed through mothers. Women controlled farming and households, and clan mothers chose the men who served as leaders.
Along the Atlantic coast, Algonquian-speaking peoples, including the Powhatan chiefdom in the Chesapeake, moved between farming villages and seasonal hunting and fishing camps.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Linking environment to society
Short-answer practice: Briefly explain ONE way the natural environment shaped a Native American society in North America before 1492.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Name a specific society and region, not just 'Native Americans'.
- Step 2: Name the environmental feature (rainfall, soil, animals, coast).
- Step 3: Explain the link: how that feature led to a specific way of life.
Answer: Model answer: In the dry Great Basin, water and large game were scarce, so peoples like the Shoshone and Paiute could not support permanent farming towns. Instead they lived in small, mobile bands that moved with the seasons to gather seeds, nuts and roots and to hunt small animals.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Plains peoples rode horses before contact. Horses came with the Spanish; Plains horse cultures developed in the 1600s and 1700s.
- Assuming all Native societies were farmers or all were nomads. The point of this topic is variety, explained by environment.
- Thinking settled villages required farming. Northwest Coast peoples built permanent, wealthy villages based on salmon and cedar, not crops.
On the exam
- Expect stimulus questions with an archaeological description or a map of regions. The question usually asks you to connect environment, food supply and settlement pattern.
- Maize is the key causal link: maize farming led to surplus, which led to larger, settled, more complex societies.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 1.2 Native American Societies Before European Contact. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Cahokia, a city near present-day St. Louis that flourished from about 1050 to 1350, was a center of the Mississippian culture. Which of the following best describes this culture?
Around 1491, the peoples of North America lived in societies as varied as the land itself. In the arid Southwest, Pueblo peoples channeled scarce water to fields of maize, beans and squash and built multistory towns of adobe and stone. On the Great Plains and in the Great Basin, where rainfall was low and game moved with the seasons, many groups lived in small mobile bands that hunted and gathered across wide territories.
In the forests of the Northeast, the Haudenosaunee lived in palisaded villages of bark longhouses. Women controlled and worked the fields and clan membership passed through mothers, while men hunted, traded and led in war and diplomacy. Along the Pacific Northwest coast, peoples such as the Chinook and Tlingit fished the great salmon runs and built villages of large plank houses, supporting dense, settled populations with sharp differences of rank, all without depending on farming.
Source: Passage written for this practice set, summarizing the work of historians and archaeologists.
The passage as a whole best supports which of the following claims?
The spread of maize cultivation northward from Mexico into the Southwest and the Northeast most directly contributed to
The description of the Pacific Northwest peoples most directly challenges which generalization?
0 of 4 answered