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$a CIVILIZATIONS OF THE AMERICAS : BAIVE AMERICAN CULTURE OF NORTH, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAThe first peoples of the Americas had their roots in prehistoric East Asia. We do not know exactly when or how people first migrated from the Old World to the New World. It must have been during the last Ice Age, when Asia and North America were connected by a strip of land. Across this bridge, people from East Asia were able to travel to new lands in a continent where no people had ever dwelt before. This volume of THE ATLAS OF HUMAN HISTORY guides you through the early stages of the settlement by human beings of the Americas, and the rise of the first civilizations there. The early settlers made their homes in the continent s frozen sub-Arctic lands, along the coasts and river valleys, and in the dry lands of the southwest. They settled in the forests and woodlands of the east coast, and on the great plains that covered much of the interior. They lived as hunters, fishers and farmers in harmony with the wilderness. Moving through the narrow isthmus of Central America, they travelled into the tropical forests, mountains and grasslands of South America. The maps and reconstructions in Civilizations of the Americas illustrate important stages in this long process, and the different kinds of cultures that were developed - from the hunters of the Arctic to the temple and pyramid builders of Mexico. In places impressive monuments still stand, the ruins of great cities and religious centres. But there are mysteries still unsolved, for many early American cultures have vanished into legend, or have been absorbed or destroyed by other cultures, more powerful and more aggressive. Humans in America developed an innate sense of the spirit of nature. People believed that divine forces were at work in sunlight, birth and death, as well as everyday activities such as farming, war and trade. The gods who were all around were able to intervene in human affairs. Much Early American art celebrated the gods, and the powerful beliefs founded in these ideas lasted for hundreds of years. This religious tradition provides the bedrock of a Native American spiritual heritage. It exerts its power today, even in the modern world with all its technologies, where the Native American is the longestrooted migrant among so many settlers in a New World.(libra)
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