117-699: Millingstone Horizon is an archaeological period of Native American dominance denoting a period in California , United States involving extensive use of manos and other grinding technology. The interval is a subset of the Archaic Period ; specifically Millingstone is usually applied to the period 6500 to 1500 BCE . Alternatively this epoch within North America is known as the Encinitas Tradition . Archaeological recovery from
234-489: 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
351-644: A Western Chʼolan variety diffused from the Usumacinta region from the mid-7th century on, and a Yucatecan variety found in the texts from the Yucatán Peninsula. The reason why only few linguistic varieties are found in the glyphic texts is probably that these served as prestige dialects throughout the Maya region; hieroglyphic texts would have been composed in the language of the elite. Stephen Houston, John Robertson and David Stuart have suggested that
468-667: 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
585-640: 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
702-855: 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
819-595: A few villages on the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona , in Chiapas . Wastek (also spelled Huastec and Huaxtec) is spoken in the Mexican states of Veracruz and San Luis Potosí by around 110,000 people. It is the most divergent of modern Mayan languages. Chicomuceltec was a language related to Wastek and spoken in Chiapas that became extinct some time before 1982. Proto-Mayan (the common ancestor of
936-476: 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
1053-424: 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
1170-551: 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
1287-518: A number of sites in California has yielded evidence of Native American habitation and daily life in this period that ended around 3,500 years ago. The Chumash people , who inhabited much of present-day San Luis Obispo County , Santa Barbara County , and Ventura County have Millingstone Horizon elements in their history. For example, an extensive site at Morro Creek in the present day town of Morro Bay has yielded evidence of coastal Chumash in
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#17327727173381404-416: 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
1521-592: 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
1638-464: A strategy of self-representation for the Maya movements and its followers. The Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG) finds twenty-one distinct Mayan languages." This pride in unity has led to an insistence on the distinctions of different Mayan languages, some of which are so closely related that they could easily be referred to as dialects of a single language. But, given that the term "dialect" has been used by some with racialist overtones in
1755-611: 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
1872-493: 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
1989-666: 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
2106-437: 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
2223-534: 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
2340-533: 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
2457-408: Is also used to refer to ethnic or cultural traits. Most Maya identify first and foremost with a particular ethnic group, e.g. as "Yucatec" or "Kʼicheʼ"; but they also recognize a shared Maya kinship. Language has been fundamental in defining the boundaries of that kinship. Fabri writes: "The term Maya is problematic because Maya peoples do not constitute a homogeneous identity. Maya, rather, has become
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#17327727173382574-416: 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
2691-485: Is based on changes shared between groups of languages. For example, languages of the western group (such as Huastecan, Yucatecan and Chʼolan) all changed the Proto-Mayan phoneme * /r/ into [j] , some languages of the eastern branch retained [r] (Kʼichean), and others changed it into [tʃ] or, word-finally, [t] (Mamean). The shared innovations between Huastecan, Yucatecan and Chʼolan show that they separated from
2808-551: 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
2925-629: Is one of the best-documented and most studied in the Americas . Modern Mayan languages descend from the Proto-Mayan language , thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed using the comparative method . The proto-Mayan language diversified into at least six different branches: the Huastecan , Quichean , Yucatecan , Qanjobalan , Mamean and Chʼolan–Tzeltalan branches. Mayan languages form part of
3042-624: Is reflected as [x] in the eastern branches (Quichean–Mamean), [n] in Qʼanjobalan, Chʼolan and Yucatecan, [h] in Huastecan, and only conserved as [ŋ] in Chuj and Jakaltek. Vowel quality is typically classified as having monophthongal vowels. In traditionally diphthongized contexts, Mayan languages will realize the V-V sequence by inserting a hiatus-breaking glottal stop or glide insertion between
3159-651: Is rejected by most historical linguists as unsupported by available evidence. Writing in 1997, Lyle Campbell , an expert in Mayan languages and historical linguistics, argued that the most promising proposal is the " Macro-Mayan " hypothesis, which posits links between Mayan, the Mixe–Zoque languages and the Totonacan languages , but more research is needed to support or disprove this hypothesis. In 2015, Campbell noted that recent evidence presented by David Mora-Marin makes
3276-572: Is spoken by 12,000 as a result of recent migrations. The Uspantek language , which also springs directly from the Quichean–Mamean node, is native only to the Uspantán municipio in the department of El Quiché , and has 3,000 speakers. Within the Quichean sub-branch Kʼicheʼ (Quiché) , the Mayan language with the largest number of speakers, is spoken by around 1,000,000 Kʼicheʼ Maya in
3393-788: Is spoken by 77,700 in Guatemala's Huehuetenango department, with small populations elsewhere. The region of Qʼanjobalan speakers in Guatemala, due to genocidal policies during the Civil War and its close proximity to the Mexican border , was the source of a number of refugees. Thus there are now small Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek, and Akatek populations in various locations in Mexico, the United States (such as Tuscarawas County, Ohio and Los Angeles, California ), and, through postwar resettlement, other parts of Guatemala. Jakaltek (also known as Poptiʼ )
3510-586: Is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area stretching from Guatemala City westward to the northern shore of Lake Atitlán . Tzʼutujil has about 90,000 speakers in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. Other members of the Kʼichean branch are Sakapultek , spoken by about 15,000 people mostly in El Quiché department, and Sipakapense , which is spoken by 8,000 people in Sipacapa , San Marcos . The largest language in
3627-561: Is spoken by almost 100,000 in several municipalities of Huehuetenango . Another member of this branch is Akatek , with over 50,000 speakers in San Miguel Acatán and San Rafael La Independencia . Chuj is spoken by 40,000 people in Huehuetenango, and by 9,500 people, primarily refugees, over the border in Mexico, in the municipality of La Trinitaria , Chiapas , and the villages of Tziscau and Cuauhtémoc. Tojolabʼal
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3744-952: Is spoken by around 49,000 people in several small pockets in Guatemala . Yucatec Maya (known simply as "Maya" to its speakers) is the most commonly spoken Mayan language in Mexico . It is currently spoken by approximately 800,000 people, the vast majority of whom are to be found on the Yucatán Peninsula . It remains common in Yucatán and in the adjacent states of Quintana Roo and Campeche . The other three Yucatecan languages are Mopan , spoken by around 10,000 speakers primarily in Belize ; Itzaʼ , an extinct or moribund language from Guatemala's Petén Basin; and Lacandón or Lakantum, also severely endangered with about 1,000 speakers in
3861-562: Is spoken in eastern Chiapas by 36,000 people. The Quichean–Mamean languages and dialects, with two sub-branches and three subfamilies, are spoken in the Guatemalan highlands . Qʼeqchiʼ (sometimes spelled Kekchi), which constitutes its own sub-branch within Quichean–Mamean, is spoken by about 800,000 people in the southern Petén , Izabal and Alta Verapaz departments of Guatemala, and also in Belize by 9,000 speakers. In El Salvador it
3978-538: Is spoken today. The earliest proposal which identified the Chiapas-Guatemalan highlands as the likely "cradle" of Mayan languages was published by the German antiquarian and scholar Karl Sapper in 1912. Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson have reconstructed more than 3000 lexical items for the proto-Mayan language. According to the prevailing classification scheme by Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman,
4095-406: Is the position of Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean. Some scholars think these form a separate Western branch (as in the diagram below). Other linguists do not support the positing of an especially close relationship between Chʼolan and Qʼanjobalan–Chujean; consequently they classify these as two distinct branches emanating directly from the proto-language. An alternative proposed classification groups
4212-570: 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
4329-614: 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
4446-771: 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
4563-528: The Guatemalan highlands, around the towns of Chichicastenango and Quetzaltenango and in the Cuchumatán mountains , as well as by urban emigrants in Guatemala City . The famous Maya mythological document, Popol Vuh , is written in an antiquated Kʼicheʼ often called Classical Kʼicheʼ (or Quiché) . The Kʼicheʼ culture was at its pinnacle at the time of the Spanish conquest. Qʼumarkaj , near
4680-503: 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
4797-573: 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
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4914-549: 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
5031-718: The Lencan and Xinca people , possibly during the Classic period (250–900). During the Classic period the major branches began diversifying into separate languages. The split between Proto-Yucatecan (in the north, that is, the Yucatán Peninsula) and Proto-Chʼolan (in the south, that is, the Chiapas highlands and Petén Basin ) had already occurred by the Classic period, when most extant Maya inscriptions were written. Both variants are attested in hieroglyphic inscriptions at
5148-453: The Maya sites of the time, and both are commonly referred to as " Classic Maya language ". Although a single prestige language was by far the most frequently recorded on extant hieroglyphic texts, evidence for at least three different varieties of Mayan have been discovered within the hieroglyphic corpus—an Eastern Chʼolan variety found in texts written in the southern Maya area and the highlands,
5265-823: 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
5382-517: The Mesoamerican language area , an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica. All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational nouns instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships. They also possess grammatical and typological features that set them apart from other languages of Mesoamerica, such as
5499-485: 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
5616-448: 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
5733-431: 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,
5850-621: 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
5967-587: 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
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#17327727173386084-500: The 20th century and nationalist and ethnic-pride-based ideologies spread, the Mayan-speaking peoples began to develop a shared ethnic identity as Maya, the heirs of the Maya civilization . The word "Maya" was likely derived from the postclassical Yucatán city of Mayapan ; its more restricted meaning in pre-colonial and colonial times points to an origin in a particular region of the Yucatán Peninsula. The broader meaning of "Maya" now current, while defined by linguistic relationships,
6201-453: 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
6318-462: 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
6435-416: 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
6552-899: 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
6669-399: 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
6786-542: The Andean region. Guinea pigs are now widely raised in Western society as household pets. Mayan languages The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica , both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America . Mayan languages are spoken by at least six million Maya people , primarily in Guatemala , Mexico , Belize , El Salvador and Honduras . In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory. The Mayan language family
6903-454: 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
7020-416: The Belizean speaker population figures around 30,000. The Chʼolan languages were formerly widespread throughout the Maya area, but today the language with most speakers is Chʼol , spoken by 130,000 in Chiapas. Its closest relative, the Chontal Maya language , is spoken by 55,000 in the state of Tabasco . Another related language, now endangered, is Chʼortiʼ , which is spoken by 30,000 in Guatemala. It
7137-570: The Central Lowlands. They may have served as prestige languages, coexisting with other dialects in some areas. This assumption provides a plausible explanation for the geographical distance between the Chʼortiʼ zone and the areas where Chʼol and Chontal are spoken. The closest relatives of the Chʼolan languages are the languages of the Tzeltalan branch, Tzotzil and Tzeltal , both spoken in Chiapas by large and stable or growing populations (265,000 for Tzotzil and 215,000 for Tzeltal ). Tzeltal has tens of thousands of monolingual speakers. Qʼanjobʼal
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#17327727173387254-464: The Chʼolan group and moved south into the Chiapas Highlands , they came into contact with speakers of Mixe–Zoque languages . According to an alternative theory by Robertson and Houston , Huastecan stayed in the Guatemalan highlands with speakers of Chʼolan–Tzeltalan, separating from that branch at a much later date than proposed by Kaufman. In the Archaic period (before 2000 BCE), a number of loanwords from Mixe–Zoquean languages seem to have entered
7371-516: The Chʼoltiʼan languages are retentions rather than innovations, and that the diversification of Chʼolan in fact post-dates the classic period. The language of the classical lowland inscriptions then would have been proto-Chʼolan. During the Spanish colonization of Central America, all indigenous languages were eclipsed by Spanish , which became the new prestige language. The use of Mayan languages came to an end in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature. Yet
7488-472: 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
7605-426: 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
7722-436: The Huastecan branch as springing from the Chʼolan–Tzeltalan node, rather than as an outlying branch springing directly from the proto-Mayan node. Studies estimate that Mayan languages are spoken by more than six million people. Most of them live in Guatemala where depending on estimates 40%–60% of the population speaks a Mayan language. In Mexico the Mayan speaking population was estimated at 2.5 million people in 2010, whereas
7839-401: 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
7956-485: 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
8073-593: 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')
8190-406: The Mamean sub-branch is Mam , spoken by 478,000 people in the departments of San Marcos and Huehuetenango. Awakatek is the language of 20,000 inhabitants of central Aguacatán , another municipality of Huehuetenango. Ixil (possibly three different languages) is spoken by 70,000 in the " Ixil Triangle " region of the department of El Quiché . Tektitek (or Teko) is spoken by over 6,000 people in
8307-468: The Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. The Maya area is now dominated by the Spanish language. While a number of Mayan languages are moribund or are considered endangered , others remain quite viable, with speakers across all age groups and native language use in all domains of society. As Maya archaeology advanced during
8424-524: The Mayan family to other language families or isolates , but none is generally supported by linguists. Examples include linking Mayan with the Uru–Chipaya languages , Mapuche , the Lencan languages, Purépecha , and Huave . Mayan has also been included in various Hokan , Penutian , and Siouan hypotheses. The linguist Joseph Greenberg included Mayan in his highly controversial Amerind hypothesis , which
8541-446: The Mayan languages as reconstructed using the comparative method ) has a predominant CVC syllable structure, only allowing consonant clusters across syllable boundaries. Most Proto-Mayan roots were monosyllabic except for a few disyllabic nominal roots. Due to subsequent vowel loss, many Mayan languages now show complex consonant clusters at both ends of syllables. Following the reconstruction of Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman ,
8658-1262: The Millingstone period. This California -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 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
8775-665: 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,
8892-406: The Proto-Mayan language had the following sounds. It has been suggested that proto-Mayan was a tonal language , based on the fact that four different contemporary Mayan languages have tone (Yucatec, Uspantek, San Bartolo Tzotzil and Mochoʼ), but since these languages each can be shown to have innovated tone in different ways, Campbell considers this unlikely. The classification of Mayan languages
9009-748: 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
9126-474: 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 ,
9243-568: 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
9360-507: The case for a relationship between Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean languages "much more plausible". The Mayan family consists of thirty languages. Typically, these languages are grouped into 5–6 major subgroups (Yucatecan, Huastecan, Chʼolan–Tzeltalan, Qʼanjobʼalan, Mamean, and Kʼichean). The Mayan language family is extremely well documented, and its internal genealogical classification scheme is widely accepted and established, except for some minor unresolved differences. One point still at issue
9477-441: The case of transitive verbs ), and for plurality of person. Possessed nouns are marked for person of possessor. In Mayan languages, nouns are not marked for case, and gender is not explicitly marked. Proto-Mayan is thought to have had a basic verb–object–subject word order with possibilities of switching to VSO in certain circumstances, such as complex sentences, sentences where object and subject were of equal animacy and when
9594-628: 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
9711-504: 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
9828-630: 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
9945-505: The first division occurred around 2200 BCE, when Huastecan split away from Mayan proper after its speakers moved northwest along the Gulf Coast of Mexico . Proto-Yucatecan and Proto-Chʼolan speakers subsequently split off from the main group and moved north into the Yucatán Peninsula . Speakers of the western branch moved south into the areas now inhabited by Mamean and Quichean people. When speakers of proto-Tzeltalan later separated from
10062-413: The form of affixes attached to the numeral; in others such as Tzeltal, they are free forms. Jakaltek has both numeral classifiers and noun classifiers, and the noun classifiers can also be used as pronouns. The meaning denoted by a noun may be altered significantly by changing the accompanying classifier. In Chontal, for example, when the classifier -tek is used with names of plants it is understood that
10179-579: 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
10296-435: 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
10413-570: 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
10530-707: 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
10647-476: 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,
10764-830: 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
10881-605: The municipality of Tectitán, and 1,000 refugees in Mexico. According to the Ethnologue the number of speakers of Tektitek is growing. The Poqom languages are closely related to Core Quichean, with which they constitute a Poqom-Kʼichean sub-branch on the Quichean–Mamean node. Poqomchiʼ is spoken by 90,000 people in Purulhá , Baja Verapaz , and in the following municipalities of Alta Verapaz : Santa Cruz Verapaz , San Cristóbal Verapaz , Tactic , Tamahú and Tucurú . Poqomam
10998-458: 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
11115-457: The numeral cannot appear without an accompanying classifier. Some Mayan languages, such as Kaqchikel, do not use numeral classifiers. Class is usually assigned according to whether the object is animate or inanimate or according to an object's general shape. Thus when counting "flat" objects, a different form of numeral classifier is used than when counting round things, oblong items or people. In some Mayan languages such as Chontal, classifiers take
11232-670: The other Mayan languages before the changes found in other branches had taken place. The palatalized plosives [tʲʼ] and [tʲ] are not found in most of the modern families. Instead they are reflected differently in different branches, allowing a reconstruction of these phonemes as palatalized plosives. In the eastern branch (Chujean-Qʼanjobalan and Chʼolan) they are reflected as [t] and [tʼ] . In Mamean they are reflected as [ts] and [tsʼ] and in Quichean as [tʃ] and [tʃʼ] . Yucatec stands out from other western languages in that its palatalized plosives are sometimes changed into [tʃ] and sometimes [t] . The Proto-Mayan velar nasal * [ŋ]
11349-523: The past, as scholars made a spurious distinction between Amerindian "dialects" and European "languages", the preferred usage in Mesoamerica in recent years has been to designate the linguistic varieties spoken by different ethnic group as separate languages. In Guatemala, matters such as developing standardized orthographies for the Mayan languages are governed by the Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG; Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages), which
11466-536: The present-day city of Santa Cruz del Quiché , was its economic and ceremonial center. Achi is spoken by 85,000 people in Cubulco and Rabinal , two municipios of Baja Verapaz . In some classifications, e.g. the one by Campbell , Achi is counted as a form of Kʼicheʼ. However, owing to a historical division between the two ethnic groups, the Achi Maya do not regard themselves as Kʼicheʼ. The Kaqchikel language
11583-508: The proto-Mayan language. This has led to hypotheses that the early Maya were dominated by speakers of Mixe–Zoquean languages, possibly the Olmec . In the case of the Xincan and Lencan languages , on the other hand, Mayan languages are more often the source than the receiver of loanwords. Mayan language specialists such as Campbell believe this suggests a period of intense contact between Maya and
11700-774: 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
11817-663: The rich post-Conquest literature in Mayan languages written in the Latin script , provides a basis for the modern understanding of pre-Columbian history unparalleled in the Americas. Mayan languages are the descendants of a proto-language called Proto-Mayan or, in Kʼicheʼ Maya, Nabʼee Mayaʼ Tzij ("the old Maya Language"). The Proto-Mayan language is believed to have been spoken in the Cuchumatanes highlands of central Guatemala in an area corresponding roughly to where Qʼanjobalan
11934-540: 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
12051-447: The specific variety of Chʼolan found in the majority of Southern Lowland glyphic texts was a language they dub "Classic Chʼoltiʼan", the ancestor language of the modern Chʼortiʼ and Chʼoltiʼ languages . They propose that it originated in western and south-central Petén Basin, and that it was used in the inscriptions and perhaps also spoken by elites and priests. However, Mora-Marín has argued that traits shared by Classic Lowland Maya and
12168-406: The subject was definite. Today Yucatecan, Tzotzil and Tojolabʼal have a basic fixed VOS word order. Mamean, Qʼanjobʼal, Jakaltek and one dialect of Chuj have a fixed VSO one. Only Chʼortiʼ has a basic SVO word order. Other Mayan languages allow both VSO and VOS word orders. In many Mayan languages, counting requires the use of numeral classifiers , which specify the class of items being counted;
12285-474: 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
12402-497: 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
12519-569: 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
12636-458: 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
12753-650: The use of ergativity in the grammatical treatment of verbs and their subjects and objects, specific inflectional categories on verbs, and a special word class of "positionals" which is typical of all Mayan languages. During the pre-Columbian era of Mesoamerican history , some Mayan languages were written in the logo-syllabic Maya script . Its use was particularly widespread during the Classic period of Maya civilization (c. 250–900). The surviving corpus of over 5,000 known individual Maya inscriptions on buildings, monuments, pottery and bark-paper codices , combined with
12870-412: The vowels. Some Kʼichean-branch languages have exhibited developed diphthongs from historical long vowels, by breaking /e:/ and /o:/. The morphology of Mayan languages is simpler than that of other Mesoamerican languages, yet its morphology is still considered agglutinating and polysynthetic . Verbs are marked for aspect or tense , the person of the subject , the person of the object (in
12987-456: 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
13104-589: 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
13221-616: Was founded by Maya organisations in 1986. Following the 1996 peace accords , it has been gaining a growing recognition as the regulatory authority on Mayan languages both among Mayan scholars and the Maya peoples. The Mayan language family has no demonstrated genetic relationship to other language families. Similarities with some languages of Mesoamerica are understood to be due to diffusion of linguistic traits from neighboring languages into Mayan and not to common ancestry. Mesoamerica has been proven to be an area of substantial linguistic diffusion. A wide range of proposals have tried to link
13338-656: 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
13455-505: 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
13572-575: Was previously also spoken in the extreme west of Honduras and El Salvador , but the Salvadorian variant is now extinct and the Honduran one is considered moribund. Chʼoltiʼ , a sister language of Chʼortiʼ, is also extinct. Chʼolan languages are believed to be the most conservative in vocabulary and phonology, and are closely related to the language of the Classic-era inscriptions found in
13689-517: 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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