Native Cultures to the North

To the north of these grand civilizations, smaller societies with less elaborate cultures thrived. In present-day Arizona and New Mexico, the Mogollon and Hohokam established communities around 500 C.E. The Mogollon were expert potters while the Hohokam developed extensive irrigation systems. Farther north, in present-day Utah and Colorado, the ancient Pueblo people built adobe and masonry homes cut into cliffs around 750 C.E. The homes clustered around a sunken ceremonial room, the kiva. A century later, the center of this culture moved south to the San Juan River Basin, where the Pueblo constructed large buildings that housed the people and their rulers along with administrative offices, religious centers, and craft shops. When a prolonged drought settled on the region in the early twelfth century, many Pueblo moved back north into cliff dwellings that offered greater protection from invaders as well as from the heat and sun. By 1300 these areas, too, were gripped by drought, and the residents appear to have dispersed into smaller groups.

Farther north on the plains that stretched from present-day Colorado into Canada, hunting societies developed around herds of bison. A weighted spear-throwing device, called an atlatl, allowed hunters to capture smaller game, while nets, hooks, and snares allowed them to catch birds, fish, and small animals. For many such groups, hunting was supplemented by the gathering of berries, roots, and other edible plants. These Plains societies generally remained small and widely scattered since they needed a large expanse of territory to ensure their survival as they traveled to follow migrating animals or seasonal plant sources.

Hunting-gathering societies also emerged along the Pacific coast, but the abundance of fish, small game, and plant life there provided the resources to develop permanent settlements. The Chumash Indians, near present-day Santa Barbara, California, harvested resources from the land and the ocean. Women gathered acorns and pine nuts, while men fished along the coastal waters and in rivers and hunted deer and smaller animals. The Chumash, whose villages sometimes held a thousand inhabitants, participated in regional exchange networks up and down the coast. As many as 300,000 people may have lived along the Pacific in a diverse array of societies before the arrival of Europeans.

Even larger societies with more elaborate social, religious, and political systems developed near the Mississippi River. A group that came to be called the Hopewell people established a thriving culture there in the early centuries C.E. The river and its surrounding lands provided fertile fields and easy access to distant communities. Centered in present-day southern Ohio and western Illinois, the Hopewell constructed towns of four thousand to six thousand people. Artifacts from their burial sites reflect extensive trading networks that stretched from the Missouri River to Lake Superior, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian region and Florida.

Beginning around 500 C.E., the Hopewell culture gave birth to larger and more complex societies that flourished in the Mississippi River valley and to the south and east. As bows and arrows spread into the region, people hunted more game in the thick forests. But Mississippian groups also learned to cultivate corn. The development of corn as a staple crop allowed the population to expand dramatically, and more complex political and religious systems developed in which elite rulers gained greater control over the labor of farmers and hunters.

Mississippian peoples created massive earthworks sculpted in the shape of serpents, birds, and other creatures. Still visible in present-day north Georgia, eastern Oklahoma, and southern Ohio and at Cahokia Creek near modern East St. Louis, Illinois, some earthen sculptures stood over 70 feet high and stretched more than 1,300 feet in length. Mississippians also constructed huge temple mounds that could cover nearly 16 acres.

By about 1100 C.E., the community around Cahokia Creek had grown to some fifteen thousand inhabitants. Powerful chieftains extended their trade networks, conquered smaller villages, and created a centralized government. But the rulers proved too weak to maintain their control over numerous scattered towns. To the south, near present-day Tuscaloosa, Alabama, more than twenty flat-topped mounds formed an important ceremonial center in the thirteenth century. By 1400, however, the Mississippians began to lose power there as well. Over the next century, this once-flourishing culture declined, leaving behind vast temple mounds and stunning earthen sculptures.