American Indians before European contact; Part iii: Indian ... native peoples began to concentrate settlements near streams and rivers, ... 700 a.d.), an important American Indian cultural tradition known as the ... example of a mound that was at the heart of a town site built by Mississippian people.
Answer: The history of American Indians before European contact is broadly divided into three major periods: the Paleo-Indian period, the Archaic period (8000–1000 b.c.), and the Woodland period (1000 b.c.–1600 a.d.). The limited evidence available about the Paleo-Indian period suggests that the first Indians in the Southeast, as elsewhere, were nomadic, hunting and defending themselves with stone tools (knives and scrapers), clubs, and spears, which were at times tipped with wellcrafted, fluted stone points. During the Archaic period, basketry, bone tools, and finer stone tools appeared. Archaic peoples also began to develop more specialized knowledge of their local environments and the animals and plants that lived there. Though they did not generally travel far beyond these familiar environments, American Indians during this period did begin to establish trade and migration routes that brought the native peoples of the Carolinas in contact with other bands and tribes.
