The nature of North American Indian cultures at the time of European contact in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is poorly understood. Europeans who first entered the New World were, for the most part, untrained in scientific observation. In addition, depopulation from introduced diseases caused rapid changes in traditional Indian lifeways. This drastic reduction in populations forced abandonment of ancient homelands; emptying of towns; and devastating economic, religious, and political restructuring. Warfare against superior numbers of Europeans and advanced military technology shattered the societies that remained.

One fact, however, stands strikingly clear: At the time of contact, warfare was endemic...

The Prairie area is differentiated from the High Plains by lower elevation and a higher annual precipitation rate. A key diagnostic defining the western Prairie boundary is the tall, luxuriant bluestem grass which gradually replaces the much shorter grama “buffalo grass,” the most common ground cover on the High Plains. The eastern boundary of the Prairie is the Mississippi River; the southern, the Gulf Coast; and the northern, the subarctic forests in Canada, where maize cultivation becomes impossible.

The Indians of this region were centered along the many rivers that run west to east from the Rocky Mountains to the...

The California Culture Area is not congruent with the present-day boundaries of California. Two-thirds of the state, mainly in the west, comprises the area bounded on the west by the Pacific coast and on the east by the Basin/Plateau and Southwest Culture Areas. Subareas on northern and southern boundaries show heavy influence from the Northwest Coast Culture Area in the former case and the Southwest Culture Area in the latter. Central California is believed to have the most distinctively “Californian” cultures. Major representative tribes include the Shasta, Karok, Achumawi, Atsugewi, Maidu, Konkow, Pomo, Wappo, Nisenan, Wintu, Patwin, Nomlaki, Yurok, Hupa,...

The High Plains area comprises about 1.5 million square miles of relatively flat, open country. Its northern boundary extends into central Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the plains/prairie habitat gives way to subarctic forests. The Rocky Mountains form the western boundary; the western edges of the tall grass prairie, the eastern; and the Rio Grande, the southern. These boundaries circumscribed the major concentration range of the bison herds that once blackened the Plains for miles. The nomadic tribes within these boundaries depended upon the bison for subsistence and the horse for transportation, bison hunting, and warfare. The historic Indians of the...

The Northeast Culture Area includes the Great Lakes and adjacent territory, New England, and the Atlantic seaboard south approximately to Virginia. It is bounded on the north by the subarctic forests of Canada, on the west by the Prairie, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by a line which runs due west from Virginia to the eastern edge of the Prairie region.

The world of the Northeastern Indians was one of unremitting forest cover, rivers, streams, and lakes. Evidence from the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter near Avella in western Pennsylvania suggests that humans have occupied this...

In terms of physical boundaries and cultural entities, a precise delineation of the Plateau/Basin Culture Area (roughly located in the west-central United States) appears to be impossible. Kroeber, in his classic treatment of North American culture areas, wrote, “California has generally been reckoned a distinct area ever since American culture began to be classified geographically; but the Great Basin has been bandied about” (1939, 49). He surveyed the several ways American ethnologists have attempted to make sense of this area. The modern approach goes more lightly. The physical environment of the Great Basin reflects similarities and differences with the Plateau,...

The Southwest Culture Area includes New Mexico, Arizona, the southern halves of Utah and Colorado, and small portions of southeastern California and Nevada. It is an area of sharp contrasts. The Rocky Mountains push into its center, producing high, cool valleys and numerous deep canyons. At the foot of the mountains begins the high desert, through which several important rivers, fed by mountain snows, flow. In the west the lower reaches of the Colorado River and the Gila River and in the east the Rio Grande provide habitable sites along their meanders in an otherwise forbidding landscape.

The Southwest holds...

The interiors of Alaska and Canada shape the Subarctic Culture Area. This land of dense forests, rivers and streams, bogs, lakes, and punishing cold best suited small, mobile bands who pooled their meager resources from hunting, trapping, gathering, and fishing. Some of the Subarctic groups occupied territory that gave them access to migrating herds of bison and caribou, while rivers that ran with salmon several times a year favored others. Hunting targets for most bands included squirrel, rabbit, fox, beaver, porcupine, moose, deer, and bear. The many bodies of water teemed with whitefish, salmon, pickerel, trout, perch, and sturgeon. Game...

The Northwest Coast Culture Area extends from northern California to the south coast of Alaska. Population is centered along the coastal strand and islands that characterize the region. Extensions of the culture area run inland through the forests and along the bays and fjords to the north-south mountain spine that borders the east. This area encompasses the coasts of northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, as well as Vancouver Island, the Alexander Archipelago, and the Queen Charlotte Islands. The Northwest Coast Culture Area lies 1,300 to 1,400 miles from north to south in a straight line, but because...

The northern boundary of the Southeast Culture Area extends from Delaware westward to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The western border runs from the area of St. Louis southwest to the eastern border of Oklahoma and then southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic coast and the southern Gulf Coast form the eastern boundary. This area encompasses the present-day states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia; southern portions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; the southeastern quadrant of Missouri; the eastern edge of Oklahoma;...

The North Pacific Culture Area includes eastern Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, and coastal Alaska from Prince William Sound to Point Hope. On the Siberian side the Chukchee and Yukaghir peoples dominate, with scattered settlements of Asiatic Inuit (Eskimo) found on the southeast edge of the Chukchee Peninsula. Many tribes of the Alaskan Inuit occupy the Alaskan coast, and a variety of Aleutian groups live on the islands that reach from the Alaska Peninsula to Attu Island on the westernmost reaches of the Aleutian chain.

Inhabitants of the North Pacific experience an extremely harsh climate. Temperatures drop to as low as―100°...

Armor may have arisen when projectiles, blades, and clubs evolved enough to cause mortal danger in combat. Covering the body with some sort of protection seemed a logical response. Once the offensive-defensive reaction set in, the spiral began. An offensive weapon was negated by a defensive technique, which was nullified by an enhanced offensive weapon,ad infinitum, continuing to the point where the technology of one side superseded, by great lengths, that of the other: metal trumped wood and leather; gunpowder far exceeded the power of the bow oratlatl.

The archaeological record offers extensive testimony on the widespread use...