Key Concept 1.1: As native populations migrated and settled across the vast expanse of North America over time, they developed distinct and increasingly complex societies by adapting to and transforming their diverse environments.

How did contact between the European arrivals & the native people of the Americas affect both groups? It benefited the Europeans with more land for crops, new resources for materials and weapons, and it allowed them to spread their religion(s). They formed alliances with fur trading and even married native women.

6) How did pre-contact populations of North relate to their environments? How did contact with Europeans and Africans change these relations in North America? Pre-contact North Natives formed, hunted and created homes within their environment. The only homes they were allowed to make were ones for the Europeans.

I. Different native societies adapted to and transformed their environments through innovations in agriculture, resource use, and social structure. supported economic development, settlement, advanced irrigation, and social diversification among societies.

Cherokee culture thrived many hundreds of years before initial European contact in the southeastern area of what is now the United States. One of the “Five civilized tribes” because of assimilation of culture and technology of European-American settlers.

What evidence is there that societies in North America interacted with each other? Cultural groups throughout North America traded for goods they needed. Groups established alliances such as the Iroquois League for defense. Artifacts, ruins, and stories offer evidence of such interaction.

The varying cultures collectively called Mound Builders were prehistoric inhabitants of North America who, during a 5,000-year period, constructed various styles of earthen mounds for religious and ceremonial, burial, and elite residential purposes.

The Maya believed that when people died, they entered the Underworld through a cave or a cenote. When kings died, they followed the path linked to the cosmic movement of the sun and fell into the Underworld; but, because they possessed supernatural powers, they were reborn into the Sky World and became gods.

The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period. During the Middle Preclassic Period, small villages began to grow to form cities. Nakbe in the Petén department of Guatemala is the earliest well-documented city in the Maya lowlands, where large structures have been dated to around 750 BC.