NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

An independent origin and development of writing is counted among the many achievements and innovations of pre-Columbian American cultures. The region of Mesoamerica produced a number of indigenous writing systems from the 1st millennium BCE onwards. What may be the earliest-known example in the Americas of an extensive text thought to be writing is illustrated above. These undeciphered glyphs, which appear on a stone tablet discovered in the late 1990s near San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán in Veracruz, Mexico, have been termed "Olmec hieroglyphs". The tablet has been indirectly dated from ceramic sherds found in the same context to approximately 900 BCE, around the time that Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo began to wane.^[1]

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples. They are often also referred to as Native Americans, First Nations and by Christopher Columbus' historical mistake "Indians", modernly disambiguated as "American Indians", "Amerindians" or "Amerinds". Native Americans is a term which has several different common meanings and scope, according to regional use and context. ... Newfoundland, home of the Beothuk The Beothuk (IPA: ) (also spelled Boeothuck, Beothuck, Boethuk, Boeothuk, and Boethuck) were the native inhabitants of the island of Newfoundland at the time of European contact in the 15th and 16th centuries. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 363 Ã— 599 pixelsFull resolution (451 Ã— 744 pixel, file size: 105 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) I made this image myself. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 363 Ã— 599 pixelsFull resolution (451 Ã— 744 pixel, file size: 105 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) I made this image myself. ... Write redirects here. ... This article is about the culture area. ... Mesoamerica is one of the relatively few places in the world where writing has developed independently throughout history. ... variant glyphs representing the character a (allographs of a) in the Zapfino typeface. ... Front and side views of Colossal Head 1 now located at Museo de AntropologÃa de Xalapa in Xalapa, Veracruz. ... Olmec hieroglyphs (or Olmec script) refers to the putative writing system associated with the Olmec archaeological culture which flourished in the Gulf Coast region of Mexico, ca. ... Monument 1, one of the four Olmec colossal heads at La Venta. ... For other uses, see Race. ... In the last few centuries science has had an important influence on everyday notions of race. ... // Origins of modern humans see also single-origin hypothesis, multiregional hypothesis. ... The historical definition of race was an immutable and distinct type or species, sharing distinct racial characteristics such as constitution, temperament, and mental abilities. ... Race and health research is mostly from the US. It has found both current and historical racial differences in the frequency, treatments, and availability of treatments for several diseases. ... The study of race and intelligence is the controversial study of how human intellectual capacities may vary among the different population groups commonly known as races. ... // Even as the idea of race was becoming a powerful organizing principle in many societies, the shortcomings of the concept were apparent. ... Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Ethnocracy Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial quota... Racial segregation characterised by separation of different races in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Ethnocracy Anti-discriminatory Affirmative action in the United States Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity... // Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a diverse country racially. ... Brazil is a racially diverse and multiracial country. ... For the history of humans on Earth, see History of the world. ... This article is about the general scientific term. ... This is a list of topics related to racism: Affirmative action Afrocentrism Anti-Arabism Anti-Italianism Anti-Japanese sentiment Anti-racism Anti-Semitism Apartheid Aryan Nations[1] Asian pride The Bell Curve Black Hebrew Israelites[2] Black Panther Party Black power Black supremacy Blackface British National Party[3] Bumiputra Caste... The term indigenous peoples has no universal, standard or fixed definition, but can be used about any ethnic group who inhabit the geographic region with which they have the earliest historical connection. ... The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents. ... World map showing the Americas CIA political map of the Americas in an equal-area projection The Americas are the lands of the New World, consisting of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. ... The Native American name controversy is an ongoing dispute over the acceptable ways to refer to the indigenous peoples of the Americas and to broad subsets thereof, such as those living in a specific country or sharing certain cultural attributes. ... Christopher Columbus (1451 â€“ May 20, 1506) was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer and one of the first Europeans to explore the Americas after the Vikings. ...

According to the still-debated New World migration model, a migration of humans from Eurasia to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge which formerly connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The minimum time depth by which this migration had taken place is confirmed at c. 12,000 years ago, with the upper bound (or earliest period) remaining a matter of some unresolved contention.^[2] These early Paleoamericans soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.^[3] According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation accounts. There are several popular models of migration to the New World proposed by the anthropological community. ... For other uses, see Eurasia (disambiguation). ... The Bering land bridge, also known as Beringia, was a land bridge roughly 1600 km (1000 miles) north to south at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the ice ages. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Satellite photo of the Bering Strait Photo across the Bering Strait Nautical chart of the Bering Strait The Bering Strait (Russian: ) is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Russia, the easternmost point (169Â°43 W) of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, the westernmost point (168Â°05... Paleo-Indians or Paleoamericans were the ancient peoples of Americas who were present at the end of the last Ice Age. ... In comic book terminology, the phrase origin story refers to a story or backstory revealing how a male character went through a sex change, or the circumstances under which they became superheroes or supervillains. ...

Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who thought that he had arrived in the East Indies, while seeking India. This has served to imagine a kind of racial or cultural unity for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. Once created, the unified "Indian" was codified in law, religion, and politics. The unitary idea of "Indians" was not originally shared by indigenous peoples, but many now embrace the identity. Christopher Columbus (1451 â€“ May 20, 1506) was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer and one of the first Europeans to explore the Americas after the Vikings. ... The Indies, on the display globe of the Field Museum, Chicago The Indies or East Indies (or East India) is a term used to describe lands of South and South-East Asia, occupying all of the former British India, the present Indian Union, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and...

While some indigenous peoples of the Americas were historically hunter-gatherers, many practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping, taming, and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas.^[4] Some societies depended heavily on agriculture while others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and massive empires. In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ... Workers harvest catfish from the Delta Pride Catfish farms in Mississippi Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic organisms. ... This article is about building architecture. ... For other uses, see City (disambiguation). ... A chiefdom is any community led by an individual known as a chief. ... The term state may refer to: a sovereign political entity, see state unitary state nation state a non-sovereign political entity, see state (non-sovereign). ... This article is about the political and historical term. ...

[edit] History

The Archeology of the Americas is the study of the archeology of North America, Central America (or Mesoamerica), South America and the Caribbean, which is to say, the pre-history and Pre-Columbian history of Native American peoples. ... There are several popular models of migration to the New World proposed by the anthropological community. ...

[edit] Original peopling of the Americas

Language families of North American indigenous peoples

Painting of various ethnic groups from the Americas, early 20th century.

Scholars who follow the Bering Strait theory agree that most indigenous peoples of the Americas descended from people who probably migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait, anywhere between 9,000 and 50,000 years ago. The timeframe and exact routes are still matters of debate, and the model faces continuous challenges. A 2006 study (to be published in Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology) reports new DNA-based research that links DNA retrieved from a 10,000-year-old fossilized tooth from an Alaskan island, with specific coastal tribes in Tierra del Fuego, Ecuador, Mexico, and California.^[5] Unique DNA markers found in the fossilized tooth were found only in these specific coastal tribes, and were not comparable to markers found in any other indigenous peoples in the Americas. This finding lends substantial credence to a migration theory that at least one set of early peoples moved south along the west coast of the Americas in boats. However, these results may be ambiguous, as there are other issues with DNA research and biological and cultural affiliation as outlined in Peter N. Jones' book Respect for the Ancestors: Cultural Affiliation and Cultural Continuity in the American West. There are several popular models of migration to the New World proposed by the anthropological community. ... Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contacts were interactions between the indigenous peoples of the Americas and peoples of other continents â€“ Europe, Africa, Asia, or Oceania â€“ before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. ... Cultural regions of North American people at the time of European contact. ... The Solutrean hypothesis contends that stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture in prehistoric Europe may have later influenced the development of the Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas. ... Download high resolution version (1005x912, 422 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1005x912, 422 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 780 Ã— 599 pixelsFull resolution (3036 Ã— 2333 pixel, file size: 3. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 780 Ã— 599 pixelsFull resolution (3036 Ã— 2333 pixel, file size: 3. ... An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. ... World map showing the Americas CIA political map of the Americas in an equal-area projection The Americas are the lands of the New World, consisting of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... Human migration denotes any movement of groups of people from one locality to another, rather than of individual wanderers. ... This article is about Siberia as a whole. ... Satellite photo of the Bering Strait Photo across the Bering Strait Nautical chart of the Bering Strait The Bering Strait (Russian: ) is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Russia, the easternmost point (169Â°43 W) of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, the westernmost point (168Â°05... Tierra del Fuego Cerro Sombrero Village, Chile. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ...

One result of these waves of migration is that large groups of peoples with similar languages and perhaps physical characteristics as well, moved into various geographic areas of North, and then Central and South America. While these peoples have traditionally remained primarily loyal to their individual tribes, ethnologists have variously sought to group the myriad of tribes into larger entities which reflect common geographic origins, linguistic similarities, and lifestyles.^[6]

Remnants of a human settlement in Monte Verde, Chile dated to 12,500 years B.P. (another layer at Monteverde has been tentatively dated to 33,000–35,000 years B.P.) suggests that southern Chile was settled by peoples who entered the Americas before the peoples associated with the Bering Strait migrations. It is suggested that a coastal route via canoes could have allowed rapid migration into the Americas. Monte Verde is an archaeological site in south-central Chile, which is suspected to date 12,500 years before present, making it one of the earliest inhabited sites in the Americas. ... Before Present (BP) years are the units of time (counted backwards to the past) used to report raw radiocarbon ages and dates referenced to the BP scale origin in the year AD 1950 (identical to 1950 CE). ...

The traditional view of a relatively recent migration has also been challenged by older findings of human remains in South America; some dating to perhaps even 30,000 years old or more. Some recent finds (notably the Luzia Woman in Lagoa Santa, Brazil) are claimed to be morphologically distinct from most Asians and are more similar to Africans, Melanesians and Australian Aborigines. These American Aborigines would have been later displaced or absorbed by the Siberian immigrants. The distinctive Fuegian natives of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the American continent, are speculated to be partial remnants of those Aboriginal populations. These early immigrants would have either crossed the ocean by boat or traveled north along the Asian coast and entered America through the Northwest, well before the Siberian waves. This theory is presently viewed by many scholars as conjecture, as many areas along the proposed routes now lie underwater, making research difficult. Some scholars believe the earliest forensic evidence for early populations appears to more closely resemble Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders, and not those of Northeast Asia. ^[7] Lagoa Santa is a small city and municipality in southeast GoiÃ¡s state, Brazil. ... Australian Aborigines are the main indigenous people of Australia. ... Aboriginal Americans (or alternatively, American Aborigines) are the aboriginal (original residents) peoples of the Americas. ... Picture of a Fuegian (possibly a Yaghan) from the voyage of FitzRoys ship, HMS Beagle. ... Tierra del Fuego Cerro Sombrero Village, Chile. ...

Scholars' estimates of the total population of the Americas before European contact vary enormously, from a low of 10 million to a high of 112 million.^[8] This population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Robert Royal writes that "estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe and/or Western civilization often favoring wildly higher figures."^[9] Some scholars believe that most of the indigenous population resided in Mesoamerica and South America, with approximately 10 percent residing in North America, prior to European colonization.^[10] An ideology is a collection of ideas. ... For alternative meanings for The West in the United States, see the U.S. West and American West. ... This article is about the culture area. ...

The Solutrean hypothesis suggests an early Atlantic migration route into the Americas^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14] and that stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture in prehistoric Europe may have later influenced the development of the Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas. Some of its key proponents include Dr. Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Dr. Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter. In this hypothesis, peoples associated with the Solutrean culture migrated from Ice Age Europe to North America, bringing their methods of making stone tools with them and providing the basis for later Clovis technology found throughout North America. The hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and Clovis toolmaking styles, and the fact that no predecessors of Clovis technology have been found in Eastern Asia, Siberia or Beringia, areas from which or through which early Americans are known to have migrated. The Solutrean hypothesis contends that stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture in prehistoric Europe may have later influenced the development of the Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas. ... The Solutrean industry was an advanced flint tool making style of the Upper Palaeolithic. ... The Clovis culture (sometimes referred to as the Llano culture[1]) is a prehistoric Paleoindian culture that first appears in the archaeological record of North America around 11,500 rcbp radiocarbon years ago, at the end of the last glacial period. ... Dennis Stanford is the head of the Archaeology Division and Director of the Paleo-Indian Program at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. ... The Smithsonian Institution Building or Castle on the National Mall serves as the Institutions headquarters. ... The University of Exeter (usually abbreviated as Exon. ... Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400 000 years For the animated movie, see Ice Age (movie). ... North American redirects here. ... This article is about Siberia as a whole. ... The Bering land bridge, also known as Beringia, was a land bridge roughly 1600 km (1000 miles) north to south at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the ice ages. ...

American Indian creation legends tell of a variety of originations of their respective peoples. Some were "always there" or were created by gods or animals, some migrated from a specified compass point, and others came from "across the ocean".^[15]

Vine Deloria, Jr., author and Nakota activist, cites some of the oral histories that claim an in situ origin in his book Red Earth, White Lies, rejecting the Bering Strait land bridge route. Deloria takes a Young Earth position, arguing that Native Americans actually originated in the Americas.^[16] Vine Deloria, Jr. ... The Lakota (friends or allies, sometimes also spelled Lakhota) are a Native American tribe, also known as the Sioux (see Names). ... In situ is a Latin phrase meaning in the place. ... Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact (ISBN 1555913881), published in 1995, is a book by Native American author Vine Deloria. ... Created in Gods image. ...

[edit] Recent genetic research

An article in the American Journal of Human Genetics states "Our results strongly support the hypothesis that haplogroup X, together with the other four main mtDNA haplogroups, was part of the gene pool of a single Native American founding population; therefore they do not support models that propose haplogroup-independent migrations, such as the migration from Europe posed by the Solutrean hypothesis."^[17] The National Geographic Genographic Project identified haplogroup Q-M242 as the YDNA male ancestor of the "Siberian Clan," some of whom remained in Asia, but that today "almost all Native Americans are descendants from this man."^[18] The Genographic Project, launched in April 2005, is a five-year genetic anthropology study that aims to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples from over 100,000 people across five continents. ... In the study of molecular evolution, a haplogroup is a large group of haplotypes, which are series of alleles at specific locations on a chromosome. ...

[edit] European colonization

Cultural areas of North America at time of European contact.

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives, bloodlines and cultures of the peoples of the continent. The Population history of American indigenous peoples postulates that disease exposure, displacement, and warfare may have diminished populations.^[19]^[20] The first indigenous group encountered by Columbus were the 250,000 Tainos of Hispaniola who were the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. In thirty years, about 70% of the Tainos died. ^[21] Enslaved, forced to labour in the mines, mistreated, the Tainos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their newly-born children, men jumping from the cliffs or ingesting manioc, a violent poison ^[21]. They were not immune to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population.^[22] Image File history File links Size of this preview: 525 Ã— 599 pixelsFull resolution (1490 Ã— 1700 pixel, file size: 748 KB, MIME type: image/png) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Classification of indigenous peoples of the... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 525 Ã— 599 pixelsFull resolution (1490 Ã— 1700 pixel, file size: 748 KB, MIME type: image/png) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Classification of indigenous peoples of the... Territories in the Americas colonized or claimed by a European great power in 1750. ... Natives of North America. ... Inca-era terraces on Taquile are used to grow traditional Andean staples, such as quinua and potatoes, alongside wheat, a European import. ... Natives of North America. ... In medicine, infectious disease or communicable disease is disease caused by a biological agent (e. ... For other uses, see War (disambiguation). ... The Taíno are the pre-Hispanic Amerindian inhabitants of the Greater Antilles, which includes Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Bahamas. ... Early map of Hispaniola Hispaniola (from Spanish, La EspaÃ±ola) is the second-largest and most populous island of the Antilles, lying between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. ... Slave redirects here. ... Unfree labour is a generic or collective term for those work relations, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will by the threat of destitution, detention, violence (including death), or other extreme hardship to themselves, or to members of their families. ... Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life. ... Binomial name Manihot esculenta Crantz Cassava or manioc (Manihot esculenta; also yuca in Spanish, and mandioca, aipim, or macaxera in Portuguese) is a woody perennial shrub of the spurge family, that is extensively cultivated as an annual crop for its edible starchy tuberous root. ... Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) is a contagious disease unique to humans. ...

Reasons for the decline of the Native American populations are variously theorized to be from diseases, conflicts with Europeans, and conflicts among warring tribes. More recently, collective mobilization among the indigenous peoples in the Americas has required the incorporation of closely-knit local communities into a broader national and international framework of political action. This is a list of major epidemics. ... Endemic warfare is the state of continual, low-threshold warfare in a tribal warrior society. ... Community is a set of people (or agents in a more abstract sense) with some shared element. ...

Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives.^[23]^[24] After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases.^[25] Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox.^[26] Within a few years smallpox killed between 60% and 90% of the Inca population, with other waves of European disease weakening them further.^[27] Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture. Smallpox had killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico.^[28] Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Panfilo de Narvaez on April 23, 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s,^[29] killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and was credited with the victory of Cortes over the Aztec empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521.^[30] For other uses, see Pandemic (disambiguation). ... This article is about the medical term. ... The European peoples are the various nations and ethnic groups of Europe. ... World map showing location of Africa A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second_largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. ... Frontispiece of Peter Martyr dAnghieras De orbe novo (On the New World). Carte dAmÃ©rique, Guillaume Delisle, 1722. ... For other uses, see Old World (disambiguation). ... Early map of Hispaniola Hispaniola (from Spanish, La EspaÃ±ola) is the second-largest and most populous island of the Antilles, lying between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. ... Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) is a contagious disease unique to humans. ... For other meanings of Inca, see Inca (disambiguation). ... For the unrelated disease caused by Salmonella typhi, see Typhoid fever. ... Flu redirects here. ... Pánfilo de Narváez (1480? - 1528) was a Spanish conqueror and soldier in The Americas. ... is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1520 (MDXX) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. ... Plan of Tenochtitlan (Dr Atl) Mexico City statue commemorating the foundation of Tenochtitlan Tenochtitlan (pronounced ) or, alternatively, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was the capital of the Aztec empire, which was built on an island in Lake Texcoco in what is now central Mexico. ... Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés (1485 - December 2, 1547) (who was known as Hernando or Fernando Cortés during his lifetime and signed all his letters Fernán Cortés) was the conquistador who conquered Mexico for Spain. ... The word Aztec is usually used as a historical term, although some contemporary Nahuatl speakers would consider themselves Aztecs. ...

Even after the two mighty empires of the Americas were defeated by the virus, smallpox continued its march of death. In 1633 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Native Americans were struck by the virus. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans.^[31] It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679.^[32]^[33] During the 1770s, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.^[34] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plain Indians.^[35]^[36] By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).^[37]^[38] Nickname: Location in Plymouth County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Plymouth Settled 1620 Incorporated (town) 1670 Government [1] - Type Representative town meeting - Town Manager Mark Sylvia Area - Total 134. ... This article is about the people indigenous to the United States. ... Lake Ontario, bounded on the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south by Ontarios Niagara Peninsula and by New York State, USA, is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. ... For other uses, see Iroquois (disambiguation). ... Regional definitions vary from source to source. ... Original range of the Plains Indians The Plains Indians are the Indians who lived on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. ... Smallpox vaccine being administered. ...

In Brazil the indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated 3 million to some 300,000 in 1997.^[39]^[40] The Indigenous peoples in Brazil (provoke indÃa gnas in Portuguese) comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the countrys present territory prior to its discovery by Europeans around 1500. ...

Later explorations of the Caribbean led to the discovery of the Aruak peoples of the lesser Antilles. The culture was extinct by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through the modern populace. In Amazonia, indigenous societies weathered centuries of colonization^[41] This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A river in the Amazon rainforest The Amazon is a rainforest in South America. ...

The Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. ^[42] The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America and of Patagonia in South America. This new mode of travel made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange many goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game. Inca-era terraces on Taquile are used to grow traditional Andean staples, such as quinua and potatoes, alongside wheat, a European import. ... For other uses, see Great Plains (disambiguation). ... Patagonia, as most commonly defined (in orange). ... Game is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated (such as venison). ...

[edit] Agriculture

Over the course of thousands of years, a large array of plant species were domesticated, bred and cultivated by the indigenous peoples of the American continent. These species now constitute 50–60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide ^[43]. In certain cases, the indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as was the case in the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. A great number of these agricultural products still retain native names (Nahuatl and others) in the English and Spanish lexicons. This article is about the maize plant. ... species ssp. ... For the Spanish language as spoken in Mexico, see Mexican Spanish. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Innumerable crops first domesticated by indigenous Americans are now produced and/or used globally. Largest among these is maize or "corn", arguably the most important crop in the world ^[44]. Other significant crops include cassava, squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash, others), the pinto bean, Phaseolus including most common beans, tepary beans and lima beans were also all first domesticated and cultivated by indigenous peoples in the Americas); the tomato, the potatoes, avocados, peanuts, cocoa beans (used to make chocolate), vanilla, strawberries, pineapples, Peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum, including bell peppers, jalapeños, paprika and chili peppers) sunflower seeds, rubber, brazilwood, chicle, some species of cotton, tobacco, coca. This article is about the maize plant. ... Yuca redirects here. ... Species - hubbard squash, buttercup squash - cushaw squash C. moschata- butternut squash C. pepo- most pumpkins, acorn squash, summer squash References: ITIS 223652002-11-06 Hortus Third Squashes are four species of the genus Cucurbita, also called pumpkins and marrows depending on variety or the nationality of the speaker. ... Categories: Vegetables | Legumes | Food and drink stubs | Plant stubs ... Species Phaseolus acutifoliusTepary bean Phaseolus amblyosepalus Phaseolus angustissimus Phaseolus anisotrichos Phaseolus augustii Phaseolus brevicalyx Phaseolus chacoensis Phaseolus cibellii Phaseolus coccineus- Runner bean Phaseolus filiformis Phaseolus galactoides Phaseolus glabellus Phaseolus grayanus Phaseolus latidenticulatus Phaseolus leucanthus Phaseolus lunatus- Lima bean Phaseolus massaiensis Phaseolus micranthus Phaseolus microcarpus Phaseolus nelsonii Phaseolus oaxacanus Phaseolus pachyrrhizoides... Navy Bean redirects here. ... Binomial name Phaseolus acutifolius A. Gray The Tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius, Fabaceae) is native to the southwestern US and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. ... Binomial name Phaseolus lunatus L. The lima bean or butter bean, (Phaseolus lunatus, Fabaceae) is grown as a vegetable for its mature and immature beans. ... For other uses, see Tomato (disambiguation). ... Binomial name Solanum tuberosum L. The potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a perennial plant of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, grown for its starchy tuber. ... Binomial name Persea americana Mill. ... This article is about the legume. ... For other uses, see Cocoa (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Chocolate (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Vanilla (disambiguation). ... Strawberries Promo Strawberries is an album by The Damned released October 1982 on Bronze Records (catalogue #BRON 542). ... Binomial name Ananas comosus The Pineapple (Ananas comosus) is a tropical plant and its fruit, native to Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. ... Species C. annuum (incl. ... Species C. annuum (incl. ... Species (incl. ... Binomial name The jalapeÃ±o is a medium to large size chili pepper which is prized for the warm, burning sensation when eaten. ... Capsicum fruit which comes in various shapes and colours can be used to make paprika. ... For other uses, see Chili. ... For other uses, see Sunflower (disambiguation). ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... Brazilwood is a common name for several trees of the family Leguminosae (Pulse family) whose wood yields a red dye called brazilein. ... Binomial name Manilkara chicle (Pittier) Gilly Chicle is the gum from Manilkara chicle, a species of sapodilla tree. ... For other uses, see Cotton (disambiguation). ... Shredded tobacco leaf for pipe smoking Tobacco can also be pressed into plugs and sliced into flakes Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. ... For other uses, see Coca (disambiguation). ...

There is evidence that native peoples in the United States area were a few hundred years from domesticating the black bear (presumably for an oxen- or horse-like use)^[45]

[edit] Culture

Hopi man weaving on traditional loom

Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been mostly shared within geographical zones where otherwise unrelated peoples might adopt similar technologies and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area could be Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development between the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example could be the North American plains area, where until the 19th century, several different peoples shared traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers primarily based on buffalo hunting. Within the Americas, dozens of larger and hundreds of smaller culture areas can be identified. Image File history File links Hopi man weaving a blanket; with back to cam- era and holding a wooden sley in both hands. ... Image File history File links Hopi man weaving a blanket; with back to cam- era and holding a wooden sley in both hands. ... Moki redirects here. ... This article is about the culture area. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Communities of nomadic people move from place to place, rather than settling down in one location. ...

[edit] Music and art

Native American music in North America is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often includes drumming but little other instrumentation, although flutes are played by individuals. The tuning of these flutes is not precise and depends on the length of the wood used and the hand span of the intended player, but the finger holes are most often around a whole step apart and, at least in Northern California, a flute was not used if it turned out to have an interval close to a half step. IDNIANS SUCK BALLS American Indian music is the musics that are shared by or that distinguish American Indian tribes and First Nations. ... In music texture is the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices in the music and to the relationship between these voices (see below). ... For other uses, see Drum (disambiguation). ... â™ This article is about the family of musical instruments. ...

Music from indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America often was pentatonic. Before the arrival of the Spaniards it was inseparable from religious festivities and included a large variety of percussion and wind instruments such as drums, flutes, sea snail shells (used as a kind of trumpet) and "rain" tubes. No remnants of pre-Columbian stringed instruments were found until archaeologists discovered a jar in Guatemala, attributed to the Maya of the Late Classic Era (600–900 AD), which depicts a stringed musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument is astonishing in at least two respects. First, it is the only stringed instrument known in the Americas prior to the introduction of European musical instruments. Second, when played, it produces a sound virtually identical to a jaguar's growl. A sample of this sound is available at the Princeton Art Museum website. In music, a pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes per octave. ... A string instrument (also stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. ...

Art of the indigenous peoples of the Americas comprises a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculptures, basketry,carvings and hair pipes. Unfired green ware pottery on a traditional drying rack at Conner Prairie living history museum. ... For other uses , see Painting (disambiguation). ... For the Korean music group, see Jewelry (group). ... Tweed loom, Harris, 2004 Woven sheet Weaving is an ancient textile art and craft that involves placing two sets of threads or yarn called the warp and weft of the loom and turning them into cloth. ... Sculptor redirects here. ... Four styles of household basket. ... Carving can mean Rock carving Wood carving Meat carving See also: Sculpture, Lapidary This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

[edit] Demography of contemporary populations

The following table provides estimates of the per-country populations of indigenous people, and also those with part-indigenous ancestry, expressed as a percentage of the overall country population of each country that is comprised by indigenous peoples, and of people with partly indigenous descent. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given (One should note however that these categories, especially the second one, are inconsistently defined and measured differently from country to country).

[edit] History and status by country

[edit] Argentina

Argentina's indigenous population is about 403.000 (0.9 percent of total population).^[48] Indigenous nations include the Toba, Wichí, Mocoví, Pilagá, Chulupí, Diaguita-Calchaquí, Kolla, Guaraní (Tupí Guaraní and Avá Guaraní in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta, and Mbyá Guaraní in the province of Misiones), Chorote (Iyo'wujwa Chorote and Iyojwa'ja Chorote), Chané, Tapieté, Mapuche (probably the largest indigenous nation in Argentina) and Tehuelche. The Selknam (Ona) people is now virtually extinct in its pure form. The languages of the Diaguita, Tehuelche, and Selknam nations are now extinct or virtually extinct: the Cacán language (spoken by Diaguitas) in the 18th century, the Selknam language in the 20th century; whereas one Tehuelche language (Southern Tehuelche) is still spoken by a small handful of elderly people. This article is about the demographics features of the population of Argentina, including distribution, ethnicity, economic status and other. ... This is a list of Indigenous languages that are or were spoken in the present territory of Argentina. ... The Toba are an ethnic group in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. ... The WichÃ are an indigenous people of South America. ... The Mocovi language is a Guaicuruan language of Argentina spoken by about 4,500 people. ... PilagÃ¡ is a language spoken by 2,000 people in the Bermejo and Pilcomayo River valleys, western Formosa Province, in addition to Chaco and Salta province. ... NivaclÃ© is a Mataco language spoken in Paraguay by 18,000 and Argentina by 200. ... The Diaguita, also called Diaguita-CalchaquÃ, are a group of South American indigenous peoples. ... The Calchaqui were a tribe of South American Indians, now extinct, who formerly occupied northern Argentina. ... South Bolivian Quechua is a variety of Quechua, belonging to Qusqu-Qullaw Quechua, part of the Southern Quechua branch of Quechua II. It is also spoken in Argentina. ... For other uses, see GuaranÃ (disambiguation). ... Iyowujwa Chorote is a Mataco language spoken by 2,008 people, mostly in Argentina where it is spoken by 1,500 people; 50% of which are monolinguals. ... Iyojwaja Chorote is a language spoken in northeast Salta province in Argentina by 800. ... ChanÃ© language is an extinct language of Argentina and Bolivia. ... TapietÃ© is a Tupi-GuaranÃ language spoken by 33 Paraguayans (Out of an ethnic group numbering 513 to 1,519), 100 Argentines, and 70 Bolivians. ... Mapuche test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator Mapuche (Mapudungun; Che, People + Mapu, of the Land) are the Indigenous inhabitants of Central and Southern Chile and Southern Argentina. ... Patagonian camp, 1838 Tehuelches is the collective name of the native tribes of Patagonia. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ...

[edit] Belize

Mestizos (European with indigenous peoples) number about 45 percent of the population; unmixed Maya make up another 6.5 percent. The Garifuna, who came to Belize in the 1800s, originating from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with a mixed African, Carib, and Arawak ancestry make up another 5% of the population. The Maya people are a Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. ... GarÃfuna refers to both the people and language of the GarÃnagu. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Carib family (by John Gabriel Stedman) Drawing of a Carib woman Carib, Island Carib or Kalinago people, after whom the Caribbean Sea was named, live in the Lesser Antilles islands. ... Arowak woman (John Gabriel Stedman) The term Arawak (from aru, the Lokono word for cassava flour), was used to designate the Amerindians encountered by the Spanish in the West Indies. ...

[edit] Bolivia

In Bolivia about 2.5 million people speak Quechua, 2.1 million speak Aymara, while Guaraní is only spoken by a few hundred thousand people. The languages are recognized; nevertheless, there are no official documents written in those languages. However, the constitutional reform in 1997 for the first time recognized Bolivia as a multilingual, pluri-ethnic society and introduced education reform. In 2005, for the first time in the country's history, an indigenous Aymara president, Evo Morales, was elected. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Quechuan languages. ... The Aymara are a native ethnic group in the Andes region of South America; about 2. ... For other uses, see GuaranÃ (disambiguation). ... Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born October 26, 1959 in Orinoca, Oruro), popularly known as Evo (pronounced ), is the President of Bolivia, and has been declared the countrys first fully indigenous head of state since the Spanish Conquest in 470 years. ...

Encyclopedia > Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

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