Paleo-Indians of America

Prehistoric North America was home to a numerous and diverse array of peoples, languages, religions, and cultures. The earliest groups in the Americas are referred to as Paleo-Indians.

Paleo-Indians, the first people migrating to North America after the last post-glacial era originally came from Asia and reached Alaska and the Yukon around 12,000 B.C.

They first entered into the New World at the close of the last Ice Age and ends around 10,000 years ago when the climate began to warm quickly. Much of the Bering Sea, which separates Siberia from Alaska, is shallow and therefore this area became dry land allowing travel between continents.

From ≈11,200 to 8,000 years ago, the Great Plains of North America were populated by small Paleoindian hunting groups with well-developed weaponry and the expertise to successfully hunt large mammals, especially mammoths and bison.

Paleo-Indians soon learned (8000 years ago) to hunt bison in the prairies, and they used the fur and skin to build shelters and make warm clothes. Dried bison meat was also kept for winter food and for trading. Snowshoes were made for hunting bison in the wintertime.

Artifacts (Gainey-style fluted point) from Paleo-Indians in Southern Ontario and Michigan go back as early as 9000 B.C. They were hunting caribou and perhaps even mammoth and mastodon since a spruce and pine Boreal Forest had grown in the area.

Changes in the global climate helped to bring the Paleo-Indian period to an end. The Paleo-Indians were replaced by the specialized hunter-gatherer cultures or Indians.

The Indians dominated North American until they were essentially replaced by the Europeans in the east around the early 1700's and in the west around the middle 1800's.
Paleo-Indians of America