Introduction
If I asked you who discovered America, you would likely say Christopher Columbus, right?
What if I told you that Columbus did not really "discover" America – there had already been people living in the Americas for thousands of years before Columbus's arrival!
In this lesson, you will explore who these Native Americans were, how they came to the Americas, how they lived, and how the arrival of Europeans affected their ways of life.
Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to...
- Describe the early Native American societies and their ways of life prior to European contact
Essential Questions
- To what extent did the birth of the Atlantic World represent the convergence of three unique cultures?
Enduring Understandings
- There were important economic, geographic, social and political conditions that influenced Europe, American colonists, Africans, and indigenous Americans during and after the explorations of the 15th-17th centuries.
The above objectives correspond with the Alabama Course of Study: United States History I standards: 1.