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Alligator Effigy Mound

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An effigy mound is a raised pile of earth built in the shape of a stylized animal, symbol, religious figure, human, or other figure. The Effigy Moundbuilder culture is primarily associated with the years 550–1200 CE during the Late Woodland Period, although radiocarbon dating has placed the origin of certain mounds as far back as 320 BCE.

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89-629: The Alligator Effigy Mound is an effigy mound in Granville , Ohio , United States . The mound is believed to have been built between AD 800 and 1200 by people of the Fort Ancient culture. The mound was likely a ceremonial site, as it was not used for burials. Located on privately owned land, Alligator Mound is one of two extant effigy mounds known in the present-day state of Ohio, along with Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio . It has been listed on

178-481: A collective noun (also describing First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act, 1982 . Over time, as societal perceptions and government–indigenous relationships have shifted, many historical terms have changed definitions or been replaced as they have fallen out of favor. The use of the term "Indian" is frowned upon because it represents

267-639: A colonial state. The peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers ( Paleo-Indians ) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge , which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago). These populations expanded south of

356-640: A connection to residential schools. Additionally, Indigenous respondents with higher HLS and HLASS scores had one or more negative health outcomes. While there are many studies that found an association between IHT and adverse health outcomes, scholars continue to suggest that it remains difficult to understand the impact of IHT. IHT needs to be systematically measured. Indigenous people also need to be understood in separate categories based on similar experiences, location, and background as opposed to being categorized as one monolithic group. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples domesticated, bred, and cultivated

445-835: A few still considered uncontacted peoples . The Americas also host millions of individuals of mixed Indigenous, European, and sometimes African or Asian descent, historically referred to as mestizos in Spanish-speaking countries. In many Latin American nations, people of partial Indigenous descent constitute a majority or significant portion of the population, particularly in Central America , Mexico , Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador , Colombia , Venezuela , Chile , and Paraguay. Mestizos outnumber Indigenous peoples in most Spanish-speaking countries, according to estimates of ethnic cultural identification. However, since Indigenous communities in

534-507: A fierce creature that lived in the water and ate people, which they assumed to be an alligator. Effigy mound Effigy mounds were constructed in many Native American cultures. Scholars believe they were primarily for religious purposes, although some also fulfilled a burial mound function. The builders of the effigy mounds are usually referred to as the Mound Builders . Over 3200 animal-shaped effigy mounds have been identified by

623-463: A freeze frame view of a bird flying - wings outstretched, wings partially folded, and wings outstretched again. Hochunk ancestors naturally buried their dead next to lakes and rivers, and on hillsides. These locations would later become valued as some of the best places to live by settlers. This is one factor that contributed to high rates of mound destruction. Many mounds were destroyed by people grading earth surrounding their houses or what would become

712-470: A large array of plant species. These species now constitute between 50% and 60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide. In certain cases, the Indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection , as with the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. Numerous such agricultural products retain their native names in

801-424: A large citizenry. Indigenous civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics, including the most accurate calendar in the world. The domestication of maize or corn required thousands of years of selective breeding, and continued cultivation of multiple varieties was done with planning and selection, generally by women. Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and Indigenous creation myths tell of

890-423: A linear mound to make a bird mound required only the addition of a head and a tail. From there many different animal forms emerged. These often expressed a kind of abstract elongation. In addition to the obvious elongation of tails and the abstracted nature of many of the shapes, colored silts and sand were often used to decorate the mounds. The land was often scraped or raked to move earth from surface soils towards

979-544: A multitude of ways because the Indigenous community and their history are diverse. Many studies (such as Whitbeck et al., 2014; Brockie, 2012; Anastasio et al., 2016; Clark & Winterowd, 2012; Tucker et al., 2016) have evaluated the impact of IHT on health outcomes of Indigenous communities from the United States and Canada. IHT is a difficult term to standardize and measure because of the vast and variable diversity of Indigenous people and their communities. Therefore, it

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1068-405: A new mound and in doing so, artful colored sand and silt patterning was sometimes employed as adornment. In terms of positioning, some mounds may have had celestial alignments although with certainty bird mounds were placed in such a way as to suggest that they were flying up or down a hillside, and animal mounds were often placed so as to suggest animals walking along natural landform as well such as

1157-514: A piece of charcoal recovered from the base of the mound, they estimate its construction to have been 1,000 years BP (about AD 950). Lepper suggests that the Alligator Mound is an effigy of an underwater panther , a powerful figure in Native American myth . He thinks that early European settlers misinterpreted what Native Americans told them about the effigy. They were told that it was

1246-416: A pre-Columbian high of an estimated three million to some 300,000 in 1997. The Spanish Empire and other Europeans re-introduced horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. The reintroduction of the horse , extinct in the Americas for over 7500 years, had a profound impact on Indigenous cultures in several regions, such as those of

1335-411: A ridge or hillside. It is possible that predominant wind patterns may have been taken into consideration when choosing locations and orientations for bird mounds. In addition bird mounds sometimes appear in different conformations where the wings of the bird may be folded or unfolded to different degrees, suggesting various postures in flying. There are some instances where these different poses may suggest

1424-572: A second, more recent wave of migration several thousand years later and have much more recent genetic and cultural commonalities with the Indigenous peoples of Siberia . However, these groups are nonetheless considered "Indigenous peoples of the Americas". The term Amerindian , a portmanteau of "American Indian", was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association . It has been controversial ever since its creation. It

1513-601: A threat to livestock. Several bird species, such as turkeys , Muscovy ducks , Puna ibis , and neotropic cormorants were domesticated by various peoples in Mesoamerica and South America to be used for poultry. In the Andean region, indigenous peoples domesticated llamas and alpacas to produce fiber and meat. The llama was the only beast of burden in the Americas before European colonization. Guinea pigs were domesticated from wild cavies to be raised for meat consumption in

1602-493: A variety of origins of their respective peoples. Some were "always there" or were created by gods or animals, some migrated from a specified compass point , and others came from "across the ocean". The European colonization of the Americas fundamentally changed the lives and cultures of the resident Indigenous peoples. Although the exact pre-colonization population count of the Americas is unknown, scholars estimate that Indigenous populations diminished by between 80% and 90% during

1691-642: A violent poison. Eventually, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo managed to hold out in the Baoruco Mountain Range for thirteen years, causing serious damage to the Spanish, Carib-held plantations and their Indian auxiliaries . Hearing of the seriousness of the revolt, Emperor Charles V (also King of Spain) sent Captain Francisco Barrionuevo to negotiate a peace treaty with the ever-increasing number of rebels. Two months later, after consultation with

1780-437: A whole, in general, most Indigenous peoples prefer to be identified by the name of their specific nation, tribe, or band. Early settlers often adopted terms that some tribes used for each other, not realizing these were derogatory terms used by enemies. When discussing broader subsets of peoples, naming has often been based on shared language, region, or historical relationship. Many English exonyms have been used to refer to

1869-528: A whole. Since the 1970s, the word "Indigenous", which is capitalized when referring to people, has gradually emerged as a favored umbrella term. The capitalization is to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have cultures and societies that are equal to Europeans, Africans, and Asians. This has recently been acknowledged in the AP Stylebook . Some consider it improper to refer to Indigenous people as "Indigenous Americans" or to append any colonial nationality to

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1958-524: Is a common term, though nativos or pueblos nativos ('native peoples') may also be heard; moreover, aborigen ('aborigine') is used in Argentina and pueblos originarios ('original peoples') is common in Chile . In Brazil, indígenas and povos originários ('Indigenous peoples') are common formal-sounding designations, while índio ('Indian') is still the more often heard term (the noun for

2047-416: Is an arduous task to assign an operational definition and systematically collect data when studying IHT. Many of the studies that incorporate IHT measure it in different ways, making it hard to compile data and review it holistically. This is an important point that provides context for the following studies that attempt to understand the relationship between IHT and potential adverse health impacts. Some of

2136-540: Is general agreement that the Americas were first settled from Asia, the pattern of migration and the place(s) of origin in Eurasia of the peoples who migrated to the Americas remain unclear. The traditional theory is that Ancient Beringians moved when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation , following herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between

2225-557: The Archaic period of North American cultures. Technology had advanced to the point where pottery had started to become common and the small-scale felling of trees had become feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indigenous peoples began using fire in a controlled manner. They carried out the intentional burning of vegetation to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories. It made travel easier and facilitated

2314-597: The Chiribaya to herd llamas . The vast majority of indigenous dog breeds in the Americas went extinct, due to being replaced by dogs of European origin. The Fuegian dog was a domesticated variation of the culpeo that was raised by several cultures in Tierra del Fuego , like the Selk'nam and the Yahgan . It was exterminated by Argentine and Chilean settlers, due to supposedly posing as

2403-733: The Great Plains , the Northwest Plateau , the Great Basin , Aridoamerica , the Gran Chaco and the Southern Cone . By domesticating horses, some tribes had great success: horses enabled them to expand their territories, exchange more goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game , such as bison . According to Erin McKenna and Scott L. Pratt, the Indigenous population of the Americas

2492-496: The Inca Civil War of 1529–1532. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, and measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture. Smallpox killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico. Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez on 23 April 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in

2581-562: The Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using boats , they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America as far as Chile . Any archaeological evidence of coastal occupation during the last Ice Age would now have been covered by the sea level rise , up to a hundred metres since then. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus ' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice

2670-540: The Laurentide Ice Sheet and spread rapidly southward, occupying both North and South America by 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians . Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by proposed linguistic factors , the distribution of blood types , and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA . While there

2759-790: The Menominee of Wisconsin—suggest that longstanding "sacred values" may represent a summary of sustainable millennial traditions. Numerous Native American dog breeds have been used by the people of the Americas, such as the Canadian Eskimo dog , the Carolina dog , and the Chihuahua . Some indigenous peoples in the Great Plains used dogs for pulling travois , while others like the Tahltan bear dog were bred to hunt larger game. Some Andean cultures also bred

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2848-710: The National Register of Historic Places since 1971. Effigy mounds were built more often by ancient indigenous peoples located in the areas of the present-day states of Illinois , Iowa , and Wisconsin than in the Ohio area, and many have survived there. Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis surveyed the privately held site in Granville , Ohio for the Smithsonian Institution and reported their findings in their 1848 publication Ancient Monuments of

2937-1267: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act . Indigenous peoples of the Americas In the Americas , indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants prior to European settlement in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of the Americas as such. These populations exhibit significant diversity; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers , while others practiced agriculture and aquaculture . Various Indigenous societies developed complex social structures , including pre-contact monumental architecture, organized cities , city-states , chiefdoms , states , kingdoms , republics , confederacies , and empires . These societies possessed varying levels of knowledge in fields such as engineering , architecture , mathematics , astronomy , writing , physics , medicine , agriculture , irrigation , geology , mining , metallurgy , art , sculpture , and goldsmithing . Indigenous peoples continue to inhabit many regions of

3026-477: The history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European and African influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original arrival in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the early modern period . The Norte Chico civilization (in present-day Peru) is one of the defining six original civilizations of the world, arising independently around

3115-448: The residential school ancestry studies ask respondents if their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or "elders from their community" went to a residential school to understand if family or community history in residential schools is associated with negative health outcomes. In a comprehensive review of the research literature, Joseph Gone and colleagues compiled and compared outcomes for studies using these IHT measures relative to

3204-431: The " West Indies " (or " Antilles "), a name that is still used to describe the islands. This led to the blanket term "Indies" and "Indians" ( Spanish : indios ; Portuguese : índios ; French : indiens ; Dutch : indianen ) for the Indigenous inhabitants, which implied some kind of ethnic or cultural unity among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This unifying concept, codified in law, religion, and politics,

3293-505: The "discovery" of effigy mounds, and other mounds all over the country, wild theories began to be developed as to how and by whom they were built. The first theories were the most accurate; people in the late 17th century assumed that the mounds had been built by the Native American people who still lived in the vicinity. These logical assumptions lost popularity as more fantastic theories were developed. The most popular of these theories in

3382-603: The 1520s, possibly killing over 150,000 in Tenochtitlán (the heartland of the Aztec Empire) alone, and aiding in the victory of Hernán Cortés over the Aztec Empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521. There are many factors as to why Indigenous peoples suffered such immense losses from Afro-Eurasian diseases. Many Old World diseases, like cow pox, are acquired from domesticated animals that are not indigenous to

3471-577: The 16th century were Constantinople and Paris with 300,000 and 200,000 inhabitants respectively. The population in London, Madrid, and Rome hardly exceeded 50,000 people. In 1523, right around the time of the Spanish conquest, the entire population in the country of England was just under three million people. This fact speaks to the level of sophistication, agriculture, governmental procedure, and rule of law that existed in Tenochtitlan, needed to govern over such

3560-572: The 19th century was that an extinct race of Mound Builder people had built the mounds and then vanished. These theories were generally made to support nationalist sentiment and a romantic European connection to the New World. This theory was laid to rest by archaeologists at the Smithsonian Institution in the 1880s. The Ho-Chunk suggest that effigy mounds were used as places of refuge as well as burial. Some archaeologists today believe that

3649-610: The 250,000 Taínos of Hispaniola , represented the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. Within thirty years about 70% of the Taínos had died. They had no immunity to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population. One such outbreak occurred in a camp of enslaved Africans, where smallpox spread to the nearby Taíno population and reduced their numbers by 50%. Increasing punishment of

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3738-462: The Americas are defined by cultural identification and kinship rather than ancestry or race , mestizos are typically not counted among the Indigenous population unless they speak an Indigenous language or identify with a specific Indigenous culture. Additionally, many individuals of wholly Indigenous descent who do not follow Indigenous traditions or speak an Indigenous language have been classified or self-identify as mestizo due to assimilation into

3827-519: The Americas have been more vocal about how they want to be addressed, pushing to suppress the use of terms widely considered to be obsolete, inaccurate, or racist . During the latter half of the 20th century and the rise of the Indian rights movement , the United States federal government responded by proposing the use of the term " Native American ", to recognize the primacy of Indigenous peoples' tenure in

3916-993: The Americas, with significant populations in countries such as Bolivia , Canada , Chile , Colombia , Ecuador , Guatemala , Mexico , Peru , and the United States . There are at least 1,000 different indigenous languages spoken across the Americas, with 574 federally recognized tribes in the US alone. Some languages, including Quechua , Arawak , Aymara , Guaraní , Mayan , and Nahuatl , have millions of speakers and are recognized as official by governments in Bolivia , Peru , Paraguay , and Greenland . Indigenous peoples, whether residing in rural or urban areas, often maintain aspects of their cultural practices, including religion , social organization , and subsistence practices. Over time, these cultures have evolved, preserving traditional customs while adapting to modern needs. Some Indigenous groups remain relatively isolated from Western culture , with

4005-451: The Americas. European populations had adapted to these diseases, and built up resistance, over many generations. Many of the Old World diseases that were brought over to the Americas were diseases, like yellow fever , that were relatively manageable if infected as a child, but were deadly if infected as an adult. Children could often survive the disease, resulting in immunity to the disease for

4094-555: The Audencia of Santo Domingo, Enriquillo was offered any part of the island to live in peace. The Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513 , were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly concerning Indigenous peoples. The laws forbade the maltreatment of them and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism . The Spanish crown found it difficult to enforce these laws in distant colonies. Epidemic disease

4183-570: The English and Spanish lexicons. The South American highlands became a center of early agriculture. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggests that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru , from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Over 99% of all modern cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile , Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum , where it

4272-528: The Europeans began the human trafficking of massive numbers of enslaved Western and Central African people to the Americas. Like Indigenous peoples, these African people, newly exposed to European diseases, lacked any inherited resistance to the diseases of Europe. In 1520, an African who had been infected with smallpox had arrived in Yucatán. By 1558, the disease had spread throughout South America and had arrived at

4361-401: The Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Some of these names were based on foreign language terms used by earlier explorers and colonists, while others resulted from the colonists' attempts to translate or transliterate endonyms from the native languages. Other terms arose during periods of conflict between the colonists and Indigenous peoples. Since the late 20th century, Indigenous peoples in

4450-597: The Indigenous population of North America in the first hundred years after the arrival of Europeans. Some 90 percent of the native population near Massachusetts Bay Colony died of smallpox in an epidemic in 1617–1619. In 1633, in Fort Orange (New Netherland) , the Native Americans there were exposed to smallpox because of contact with Europeans. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans. It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and

4539-772: The Indigenous-European mixed-race mestizos (or caboclos in Brazil) of Hispanic America who, with their larger population (in most Latin American countries constituting either outright majorities, pluralities, or at the least large minorities), identify largely as a new ethnic group distinct from both Europeans and Indigenous, but still considering themselves a subset of the European-derived Hispanic or Brazilian peoplehood in culture and ethnicity ( cf. ladinos ). Among Spanish-speaking countries , indígenas or pueblos indígenas ('Indigenous peoples')

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4628-468: The Mississippi Valley . They described the site as "strange." They report the location of the work as being 150 to 200 feet in height. They note that people in the area called it "the alligator ," "although the figure bears as a close resemblance to the lizard as any other reptile ." The head of the effigy points towards the southwest. The work totaled 250 feet in length from head to tail. The body

4717-702: The Mississippi to Lake Michigan, and along the Wisconsin–Illinois boundary." The mounds of the Mississippi river regions in Wisconsin and Iowa most commonly feature imagery of the bear and the bird, while the mounds of the Lake Michigan and Winnebago areas most commonly feature water spirits, such as turtle and panther mounds. The Effigy Mound Builders buried one, two, or three people in a single mound. These burials were most often done singly – one atop

4806-646: The Plata basin. Colonist violence towards Indigenous peoples accelerated the loss of lives. European colonists perpetrated massacres on the Indigenous peoples and enslaved them. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), the North American Indian Wars of the 19th century had a known death toll of about 19,000 Europeans and 30,000 Native Americans, and an estimated total death toll of 45,000 Native Americans. The first Indigenous group encountered by Columbus,

4895-729: The South-Asian nationality being indiano ), but for the past 10 years has been considered offensive and pejorative. Aborígene and nativo are rarely used in Brazil in Indigenous-specific contexts (e.g., aborígene is usually understood as the ethnonym for Indigenous Australians ). The Spanish and Portuguese equivalents to Indian , nevertheless, could be used to mean any hunter-gatherer or full-blooded Indigenous person, particularly to continents other than Europe or Africa—for example, indios filipinos . Indigenous peoples of

4984-421: The Taínos for revolting against forced labor, despite measures put in place by the encomienda , which included religious education and protection from warring tribes, eventually led to the last great Taíno rebellion (1511–1529). Following years of mistreatment, the Taínos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their infants and men jumping from cliffs or ingesting untreated cassava ,

5073-561: The United States are commonly known as Native Americans , Indians, as well as Alaska Natives . The term "Indian" is still used in some communities and remains in use in the official names of many institutions and businesses in Indian Country . The various nations, tribes, and bands of Indigenous peoples of the Americas have differing preferences in terminology for themselves. While there are regional and generational variations in which umbrella terms are preferred for Indigenous peoples as

5162-767: The Wisconsin Historical Society in the upper midwest. Native North American effigy mounds have been compared to the large-scale geoglyphs such as the Nazca Lines of Peru . Effigy mounds are limited to the Northern and Eastern United States, and most likely the French were the first Europeans to see them in their expeditions southward from Canada after 1673. Early surveyors and settlers noticed and mapped many effigy mounds, but farming and other development erased numerous sites despite efforts to preserve them. After

5251-572: The contact and colonization period and were documented in historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Mayan, Olmec, Mixtec, Aztec , and Nahua peoples , had their written languages and records. However, the European colonists of the time worked to eliminate non-Christian beliefs and burned many pre-Columbian written records. Only a few documents remained hidden and survived, leaving contemporary historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge. According to both Indigenous and European accounts and documents, American civilizations before and at

5340-445: The dominant Hispanic culture . In recent years, the self-identified Indigenous population in many countries has increased as individuals reclaim their heritage amid rising Indigenous-led movements for self-determination and social justice . Application of the term " Indian " originated with Christopher Columbus , who, in his search for India , thought that he had arrived in the East Indies . The islands came to be known as

5429-417: The effigy mounds. Some have speculated that due to the lack of burial goods, that the effigy mound builders were egalitarian peoples. Hundreds of effigy mounds have been lost due to plowing, farming, and other development. Many of the remaining effigy mound sites are parts of national, state, county, or municipal parks. After many archeological excavations in the 1950s and 1960s, archeologists began discussing

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5518-577: The first centuries of European colonization. Most scholars estimate a pre-colonization population of around 50 million, with other scholars arguing for an estimate of 100 million. Estimates reach as high as 145 million. Epidemics ravaged the Americas with diseases, such as smallpox , measles , and cholera , which the early colonists brought from Europe. The spread of infectious diseases was slow initially, as most Europeans were not actively or visibly infected, due to inherited immunity from generations of exposure to these diseases in Europe. This changed when

5607-402: The foundations of houses. In some cases linear mounds were used as foundational fill for new house construction. Looting of mounds by settlers was common and this also contributed to the destruction and defacement of many. According to the National Park Service , the area in which effigy mounds are found "extends from Dubuque, Iowa, north into southeast Minnesota, across southern Wisconsin from

5696-512: The growth of herbs and berry-producing plants, which were important both for food and for medicines. In the Mississippi River valley, Europeans noted that Native Americans managed groves of nut and fruit trees not far from villages and towns and their gardens and agricultural fields. They would have used prescribed burning farther away, in forest and prairie areas. Many crops first domesticated by Indigenous peoples are now produced and used globally, most notably maize (or "corn") arguably

5785-407: The headland. They note that other earthworks can be seen from the top of the headland, specifically those in the Newark group . After their survey, Squier and Davis concluded that the site was used for sacrifices or "on stated or extraordinary occasions,". In 1999, Brad Lepper and Tod A. Frolking conducted a professional archaeological investigation of the mound. By radiometric dating of

5874-435: The health outcomes of Indigenous peoples. The study defined negative health outcomes to include such concepts as anxiety , suicidal ideation , suicide attempts , polysubstance abuse , PTSD , depression , binge eating , anger, and sexual abuse. The connection between IHT and health conditions is complicated because of the difficult nature of measuring IHT, the unknown directionality of IHT and health outcomes, and because

5963-446: The imposition and restriction of Indigenous peoples and cultures by the Canadian Government. The terms "Native" and " Eskimo " are generally regarded as disrespectful (in Canada), and so are rarely used unless specifically required. While "Indigenous peoples" is the preferred term, many individuals or communities may choose to describe their identity using a different term. The Métis people of Canada can be contrasted, for instance, to

6052-509: The lands of the Iroquois by 1679. During the 1770s smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans. The 1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic and the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plains Indians . In 1832 the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans ( The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832 ). The Indigenous peoples in Brazil declined from

6141-476: The methodologies to measure IHT include a "Historical Losses Scale" (HLS), "Historical Losses Associated Symptoms Scale" (HLASS), and residential school ancestry studies. HLS uses a survey format that includes "12 kinds of historical losses", such as loss of language and loss of land and asks participants how often they think about those losses. The HLASS includes 12 emotional reactions, and asks participants how they feel when they think about these losses. Lastly,

6230-399: The middle of the effigy was a small mound , which they believed was used as an altar . Stones covered the altar, with marks from being lit on fire in the past. A graded way was made from the altar to the "top of the effigy." The graded way is ten feet wide. They note evidence of excavation in parts of the effigy with little disturbance to the site. Through excavation they determined that

6319-830: The most important crop in the world. Other significant crops include cassava ; chia ; squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow , acorn squash , butternut squash ); the pinto bean , Phaseolus beans including most common beans , tepary beans , and lima beans ; tomatoes ; potatoes ; sweet potatoes ; avocados ; peanuts ; cocoa beans (used to make chocolate ); vanilla ; strawberries ; pineapples ; peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum , including bell peppers , jalapeños , paprika , and chili peppers ); sunflower seeds ; rubber ; brazilwood ; chicle ; tobacco ; coca ; blueberries , cranberries , and some species of cotton . Studies of contemporary Indigenous environmental management—including agro-forestry practices among Itza Maya in Guatemala and hunting and fishing among

6408-436: The mound shapes by archaeologists who were simply looking for words that would help them classify the mounds. These shapes were most likely chosen for their particular religious or spiritual significance. The earliest mounds are 'conical'; they are essentially bumps of earth - the simplest and arguably the most intuitive kind of burial. Successive conicals likely evolved into linear mounds. Bird mounds likely came next as modifying

6497-779: The mounds were built by particular clans or groups to honor their representative animal. Some believe that the animal shape is the clan or extended family of the person or person's buried in the mound. Others believe that the mounds were burial sites for everyday people, while still others believe that the depicted animal might be somehow responsible for transitioning the deceased into the next world. The mounds may also indicate hunting and gathering territories of different groups. Other evidence suggests that effigy mounds were used for all manner of rites and ceremonies, from birth ceremonies to funeral rites. Common shapes for effigy mounds include birds, bear, deer, bison, lynx, panther, turtles, and water spirits. These are somewhat arbitrary names given to

6586-410: The nation. As may be expected among people of over 400 different cultures in the US alone, not all of the people intended to be described by this term have agreed on its use or adopted it. No single group naming convention has been accepted by all Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Most prefer to be addressed as people of their tribe or nations when not speaking about Native Americans/American Indians as

6675-520: The other in successive years. The effigy mound builders did not include with their dead the wealth of material the Ohio Hopewellians did. This almost complete lack of artifacts accompanying the dead clearly indicates a culture distinct from the Hopewellian, even though mounds with Hopewell-type grave goods have been excavated in the same area, and apparently were constructed at roughly the same time as

6764-757: The rest of their lives. But contact with adult populations without this childhood or inherited immunity would result in these diseases proving fatal. Colonization of the Caribbean led to the destruction of the Arawaks of the Lesser Antilles . Their culture was destroyed by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through to the modern populace. In Amazonia, Indigenous societies weathered, and continue to suffer, centuries of colonization and genocide. Contact with European diseases such as smallpox and measles killed between 50 and 67 percent of

6853-540: The same time as that of Egypt . Many later pre-Columbian civilizations achieved great complexity, with hallmarks that included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, engineering, astronomy, trade, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies . Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first significant European and African arrivals (ca. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through oral history and through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with

6942-449: The site is made of clay and that the clay had been imported from another area. They also noted that no historical excavation, made by the creators of the effigy, was found in the region. They examine the headland where the mound is built. They describe it as a "beautifully rounded spur of land," and question if the site was rounded by humans to create such a rounded place. During their visit, they also noticed that damage had been done to

7031-474: The term Indigenous people used in the various samples comprises a huge population of individuals with drastically different experiences and histories. That being said some studies such as Bombay, Matheson, and Anisman (2014), Elias et al. (2012), and Pearce et al. (2008) found that Indigenous respondents with a connection to residential schools have more negative health outcomes (e.g., suicide ideation, suicide attempts, and depression) than those who did not have

7120-497: The term because Indigenous cultures existed before European colonization. Indigenous groups have territorial claims that are different from modern national and international borders, and when labeled as part of a country, their traditional lands are not acknowledged. Some who have written guidelines consider it more appropriate to describe an Indigenous person as "living in" or "of" the Americas, rather than calling them "American"; or simply calling them "Indigenous" without any addition of

7209-565: The term usually includes the history of Indigenous cultures until Europeans either conquered or significantly influenced them. "Pre-Columbian" is used especially often in the context of discussing the pre-contact Mesoamerican Indigenous societies : Olmec ; Toltec ; Teotihuacano ' Zapotec ; Mixtec ; Aztec and Maya civilizations ; and the complex cultures of the Andes : Inca Empire , Moche culture , Muisca Confederation , and Cañari . The Pre-Columbian era refers to all period subdivisions in

7298-454: The time of European encounter had achieved great complexity and many accomplishments. For instance, the Aztecs built one of the largest cities in the world, Tenochtitlan (the historical site of what would become Mexico City ), with an estimated population of 200,000 for the city proper and a population of close to five million for the extended empire. By comparison, the largest European cities in

7387-545: The wisdom and the ethics behind such excavations. The U.S. National Park Service explains, "when a mound is excavated, its value as a scientific object of study is greatly reduced or destroyed." All effigy mounds are currently protected under state laws that prohibit disturbance to burial sites or, if on federal or tribal land, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act , the Antiquities Act , and

7476-456: Was 145 million in the late 15th and by the late 17th century, had been reduced to 15 million due to epidemics , wars, massacres, mass rapes , starvation, and enslavement. Indigenous historical trauma (IHT) is the trauma that can accumulate across generations and develop as a result of the historical ramifications of colonization and is linked to mental and physical health hardships and population decline. IHT affects many different people in

7565-632: Was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago. According to Linda Newson , "It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines , while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet." Persistent drought around AD 850 coincided with the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization, and the famine of One Rabbit (AD 1454) was a major catastrophe in Mexico. Indigenous peoples of North America began practicing farming approximately 4,000 years ago, late in

7654-635: Was immediately rejected by some leading members of the Association, and, while adopted by many, it was never universally accepted. While never popular in Indigenous communities themselves, it remains a preferred term among some anthropologists, notably in some parts of Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean . " Indigenous peoples in Canada " is used as the collective name for First Nations , Inuit , and Métis . The term Aboriginal peoples as

7743-497: Was not originally accepted by the myriad groups of Indigenous peoples themselves but has since been embraced or tolerated by many over the last two centuries. The term "Indian" generally does not include the culturally and linguistically distinct Indigenous peoples of the Arctic regions of the Americas, including the Aleuts , Inuit , or Yupik peoples . These peoples entered the continent as

7832-402: Was noted at 40 feet wide, and each leg was measured at 36 feet. They describe the ends of the paws as being "a little broader than the remaining portions of the same, as if the spread of those toes had been originally indicated." Squier and Davis note that the head, shoulders and rump of the effigy are higher than the rest of the body. The height of the mound ranges from four feet to six feet. In

7921-508: Was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the Indigenous peoples. After initial contact with Europeans and Africans, Old World diseases caused the deaths of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World in the following 150 years. Smallpox killed from one-third to half of the native population of Hispaniola in 1518. By killing the Incan ruler Huayna Capac , smallpox caused

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