Summary Of The Bering Strait

The Bering Strait presents the notion that Native Americans crossed and inhabited the land. Some have made an assumption that these individual that inhabited the area lived in small nomadic groups where the simplicity of their way of living did not harm the environment. In the novel 1491 and in the following articles: Secrets tunnel found in Mexico Teotihuacán and The Maya: Glory and Ruin, such speculation of how these inhabitants of the Americans lived and how they became to be can be argued. These arguments are challenged by examples of origins, demographics and ecology in the Americas. The history of the ingenious people in the Americas does not begin with the crossing of the Bering Strait 13,000 years ago, further evidence suggests that

The population in the Americas was viewed to be minor nomadic groups despite that in the article by the author Shaer he is able to discover that these inhabitants lived in large groups similar to a modern city environment. Shaer discusses the following, “By A.D. 400, Teotihuacán had become the most powerful and influential city in the region. Residential neighborhoods sprang up in concentric circles around the city center, eventually comprising thousands of individual family dwellings, not dissimilar to single-story apartments, that together may have housed 200,000 people” (Shaer). The city of Teotihuacán is used as an example to further show that these inhabitants were not a small tribe but quite modern with city like environment. It also goes to show that their way of living in apartment like atmospheres amongst thousands of residents reveals their successful system as a tribe. Shaer adds that Teotihuacán was a modern day melting pot, he continues the explain, “Teotihuacán was probably one of the first major melting pots in the Western Hemisphere. I believe that the city grew a little modern Manhattan” (Shaer). Shaer suggests that the city of Teotihuacán was successful enough to attract different inhabitants. The idea of the melting pot displays the diversity in their society while shutting

Through their agricultural practices these indigenous occupants caused ecological change increasing their vegetation for survival. Shaer further explains, “Between A.D. 150 and 300, Teotihuacán grew rapidly. Locals harvested beans, avocados, peppers, and squash on fields raised in the middle of shallow lakes and swampland—a technique known as chinampa—and kept chickens and turkeys” (Shaer). A large variation of plant species were domesticated and cultivated by indigenous people to feed their tribe. The development of chinampas allowed them the harvest a range of vegetables and fruits in a shallow lake altering their environment. With that said, these early inhabitants were not living in simplicity amongst the environment therefore alteration to their surrounds had to be made in order to feed their growing civilization. There is evidence that suggests the operation for expansion of chinampas, “As popultions grew, they adopted more intensive methods of cultivation—composting, terracing, irrigation. They filled in swamps to create fields and carried silt and muck from bottomlands to fertilize enclosed gardens. Artificial ponds yield fish, and corrals held deer and other game flushed from the forest. The ancient Maya ultimately coaxed enough sustenance from the meager land for several million people, many times more than now live in the region” (Gugliotta). It is clear that their technology