Peoples of early North America

The early cultures of  North America were predominantly agrarian based, with small communities developing in and around areas where the natural environment provided rich sources of food. By AD 700 three distinct cultures had developed. These were more urban and culturally diverse, and they were heavily inluenced by Mexican civilization. By the beginning of the 15th century, however, these cultures were in decline.

By 300 BC, the area stretching from Ohio to West Virginia had already been settled.

Small communities and villages developed in river valleys, where natural food resources (such as mammals, birds, fish and vegetable foods) were both abundant and close at hand. Horticulture also developed around this time: sunflowers, marsh elder and squashes were cultivated.

Archaeological evidence from this period points to the existence of chiefdoms: the elaborate burial sites, such as that at Hopewell in Ohio, are excellent indicators of the social, religious and trade networks through which imported goods, as well as ideas, filtered by. By AD 700 three distinct cultural traditions had emerged in southwestern North America: the Hohokam, Mohollon and Anasazi. Their area of influence covered much of the territory that is now Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, and also extended south into Sonora and Chihuahua.

The Hohokam, Mogollon and Anasazi cultures all had contact with Mexico, and this contact became a significant influence on their development. Excavations have revealed ball courts and Mesoamerican-style mosaics, bracelets, effigy vessels and figurines. The architectural layout of the towns (which were used as economic, religious and trading centres) also reveals Mexican influence, and the Mexicans may even have establishes Casas Grandes in Chihuahua as the "capital" of the Mogollon culture.

The first true towns in North America appeared in the Middle Mississippi Valley from AD 700. They were characteristically built on large, flat-topped, rectangular mounds, which supported temples and mortuary houses for the elite society and more modest timber houses for the town's merchants and officials. A town generally consisted of 20 mounds grouped together around a plaza and enclosed by a defensive wooden stockade. The towns had substantial populations: it is estimated that some reached 10,000 inhabitants.

The large rural population (about 200 people per square km) was based predominantly in the fertile river valleys surrounding the towns. Again, Mexican influence here is evident: after AD 700, a hardier strain of maize, popular in Mexico, was introduced and cultivated. In addition, the introduction of the bow and arrow to replace the spear-thrower and dart meant more efficient hunting of the abundant game on the uplands.

By the time 16th-century French explorers discovered the area, the population had advanced to a ranked, matrilineal society headed by a chief who ruled four well-defined classes. Archaeological evidence from Mississippi to Minnesota and from Oklahoma to the Atlantic coast also bears withness to the widespread existence of a religion known as the Southern Cult. Reaching its peak in 1250, the cult was strongly influenced by the Mexican practice, especially in regard to the importance of the four cardinal points and the significance placed upon death.

Disease, caused by unhealthy overcrowding and poor sanitation, heralded the slow decline of the early North American cultures after AD 1300. However, their demise was but a pale foreshadowing of the destruction that was to befall these cultures when Europeans arrived on the New World.