Native American Before 1492

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Sofia Gaetano HST 2/13/13 Native Americans before 1492 Lynda Shaffer, James Axtell, and Charles Mann provide a new insight into the early history of the United States. Dr. Shaffer uses archaeological records of events and accounts leading to the mound-building era, which she shows developed over 3,000 years between 1700 BC and 1492. Mr. Axtell writes a very detailed portrait of the Indians who were considered savages by the English and Spanish, and how they were more civilized, gentle human beings than the conquerors. Mr. Mann shows us that not only were the Indians a very large population of people, but they were very talented and successful farmers and landscapers. Together, these historians paint a very different picture of the New World than the one we have had from the English and Spanish and from writers before them. We now know that these early descriptions are false. Native Americans were highly skilled, very advanced for their time; they had trade systems, advanced social structures, and cultivated and grew plants that were unknown to Europe but are now a large part of everyone’s diet—such as corn, tomatoes, and potatoes. Charles Mann's article "1491" and Lynda Shaffer's book, "Native Americans Before 1492", describe the historic evidence that European explorers coming to the "New World" did not find an undeveloped "Garden of Eden" but instead found a highly developed and sophisticated society that was hundreds of years old and contained at least a million people. Shaffer talks about the different stages of development people went through and how they came to settle in the United States. There was the hunter and gatherer stage from 12,000 B.C. to 9,00 B.C., where the people would fallow the mammoth and mastodons around from place to place, but after a world wide climate change these animals became

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