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Land bridges form where sea levels are thought to have dropped during Ice Ages. Hunters could cross from Asia into the Americas this way.
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Land bridges are covered by sea water and people were unable to cross back.
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Live in the Alaska, Russia, and Canada. Eat mainly meat and still exist to present day.
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Build earthen mounds to bury their dead and religious purposes.
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The Olmec people lived along the Gulf Coast of southern Mexico. They grew corn, beans, and squash. The became farmers, fishers, artists, sculptors, and priests. They were the first Amercians to use stone in sculptures and architecture.
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Scientists date first earthen mounds.
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The Great Serpent Mound of the Aden people is built in the Ohio Valley
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One of the first Mound Builders along the Ohio River
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The Mayans developed a complex culture in the forests of present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize of the Yucatan Peninsula. They used Maize(corn) as their main source of food and developed the corn tortilla.
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Mound builders discovered in the Ohio River area
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A group of people who lived in the four corners of the southwest that used irrigation to water their farms in the desert.
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These people settled in the areas of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
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Reasons are unknown as to why the Mayans disappeared. It may have been because of food shortages and war. Descendants still live in Guatemala and Mexico speaking the Mayan language and following the customs and traditions of their ancestors.
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The Cahokia build small, round pile of earth to bury their dead along the Mississippi River.
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Aztec people settle in the Valley of Mexico.
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The Anasazi people abandon their pueblos and cliff dwellings for smaller communities.
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The Aztec people move to Lake Texcoco.
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Known as the Children of the Sun became a large empire of the early American civilizations. They began in the Andes Mountains and settled their capital city of Cuzco in a mountain valley in southern Peru.
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The Tenochtitlan Citiy emerged on an island of Lake Texcoco with the Aztecs.
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Itxcoatl, and Aztec leader, helped to form a three-way alliance with the Texcocans and the Tacubans to conquer rivals for influence in the region.
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Pachacuti came to power and started conquering neighboring communities. Pachacuti and his son, Toa Inca, reigned over an empire that spread more than three thousand miles from modern-day Columbia to northern Argentina and Chile.
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The Aztecs ruled over 5 to 6 million people, either by conquest or commerce.
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Hernan Cortes, a Spanish conquistador, invades the Aztec Civilization and the Emperor Montezuma II dies.
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The Spaniards defeat the Aztecs and the empire ends.
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The Spanish invade the Inca empire and rapidly declines after the last emperor in killed.
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The Inca Empire ends after Spanish invasion.
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The Mississippian civilizations come to an end when Europeans arrive bring with them disease and death.