Native Americans (Discoveries)

People first came to the continent of North America during the Ice Age. Some settled in the bleak lands of the Arctic, while others walked south as far as California and Florida. They formed different tribes with their own languages, customs and ceremonies. Native Americans is the story of these people - from the hunters and warriors who speared woolly mammoths and long-horned bison, to the farmers and foragers who searched for food in the mountains and on the coast. They depended on the land for everything: for wild plants to use in healing rituals; and for materials to make and decorate clothes, masks and costumes, and to build dwellings and boats. Many Native Americans believed that the sky, earth, plants, animals and rivers had powerful spirits. Some told stories of mythical creatures that formed the world and brought good harvests. They danced, sang and prayed to the spirits and had solemn pipe-smoking rituals and powwows to ask the spirits for a successful hunt or to bring peace to warring tribes. When Columbus came to the New World, life changed for the Native Americans. The new settlers often took land by force, and herded the people o

Consulting editor David Hurst Thomas is Curator of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History.Consulting editor Lorrann Pendleton has been a scientific assistant in Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History since 1980.