The Pre-Contact Era (through 1513)
The history of North America from its geological formation through the first contact between American Indians and the expedition of Ponce de Leon.
Recommended Reading
- Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi (Penguin Library of American Indian History) - Timothy R. Pauketat
- Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest - Thomas E Emerson
- Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology: Part II: North America - J. Ehlers
- The Sioux (True Books: American Indians) - Kevin Cunningham
- The Wampanoag: People of the First Light (American Indian Nations) - Janet Riehecky
- The Settlement of America: Encyclopedia of Westward Expansion from Jamestown to the Closing of the Frontier - James Crutchfield
- Quaternary Glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere - V. Sibrava
Geoworld -- "Prehistoric Wyoming"
A remarkable number of well-preserved fossils have been extracted from Wyoming, including some stromatolites dated at nearly 2 billion years old.
Timeline
- c.12000 B.C. - The first people arrive in what is now Alaska over the Bering Strait (then an isthmus) -- although some sources dispute this claim.
- c.1200 - Cahokia reaches its peak in population, equaling Europe's largest cities of that era.
- c.1200 - The largest Pueblo cliff-dwellings are constructed in the southwest.
- 1450-1600 - The Iroquois League is formed, uniting 5 tribes near Lake Erie and Lake Huron. The League becomes a powerful, expansionist force in the region.
ERAS:
Pre-Contact - Colonial - Revolutionary - Antebellum - Civil War - Gilded Age - Depression/World War II - Modern
PEOPLE:
American Indian - Anglo/Scottish - Black - Hispanic - Women - Asian - LGBT - Irish - Jewish - Children