ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys Native American life before 1492 by recognizing that archaeologists and ethnologists are continually adding to knowledge of pre-Columbian America. Archaeological findings seem to indicate that up to about 10,000 years ago, hunting supplied a large portion of the diet of most Native American groups. Agriculture seems to have developed first in Central America and later in Peru. Native American farming is called hoe culture because the hoe was the main farm implement. The most culturally advanced Native Americans of North America were known as the Mound Builders. The Mound Builders lived in the Ohio River valley and were the progenitors of the Creeks and Choctaws. The Native Americans with whom the English, the Dutch, and the French were to come into contact were known as the Eastern Woodland Native American tribes. Eastern Woodland villages were small, perhaps numbering only one hundred people.
