Perhaps the greatest mistake one could make when considering Native American culture would be to assume that there existed only one such homogeneous culture among the indigenous peoples of North America. Rather, there is an assortment of distinct and diverse cultural aspects that, when bound together, make a whole. This book will show that there isn’t just a group of American “Indians,” but rather individual societies with marked differences—and similarities—that form what is called Native American culture.

The “first peoples” of North America
are believed to have arrived on the continent
as the result of Asiatic migrations
over what is today known as the Bering
Strait. Though some recent evidence disputes
this theory, these peoples are
supposed to have traveled over a land
bridge that existed during the time of
these migrations, between 20,000 and
60,000 years before the present era. The
land bridge was most likely caused by
glacial activity that lowered ocean levels
to such an extent that groups of Stone-
Age hunters were able to travel on foot
from present-day Russia to what is now
Alaska. Once across, these groups split
up in a broad fashion spreading throughout
the continent and beyond: from
Greenland and today’s eastern United
States seaboard to the east, to the tip of
South America to the south, and extending
past the Arctic Circle in the north.


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