VI. North Americia
B. Eastern Woodlands

The Eastern Woodlands culture area (see 'maps') consists of the temperate-climate regions of the eastern United States and Canada, from Minnesota and Ontario east to the Atlantic Ocean and south to North Carolina. Originally densely forested, this large region was first inhabited by hunters, including those who used Clovis spearpoints.

About 7000 BC, with the warming climate, an Archaic culture developed. The peoples of this area became increasingly dependent on deer, nuts, and wild grains. By 3000 BC human populations in the Eastern Woodlands had reached cultural peaks that were not again achieved until after AD 1200.

The cultivation of squash was learned from Mexicans, and in the Midwest sunflowers, amaranth, marsh elder, and goosefoot and related plants were also farmed. All of these were grown for their seeds, which-except for those of the sunflower-were usually ground into flour.

Fishing and shellfish gathering increased, and off the coast of Maine the catch included swordfish. In the western Great Lakes area, copper was surface mined and made into blades and ornaments, and throughout the Eastern Woodlands, beautiful stones were carved into small sculptures.

In the Midwest, however, beginning in around 200 BC groups of people organized into wide trading networks and began building large mound-covered tombs for their leaders and for use as centers for religious activities. These peoples, called the Hopewell, raised some maize, but were more dependent on types of foods also used during the Archaic period.

The Hopewell culture declined sometime after about AD 400. By 750 a new culture developed in the Midwest. Called the Mississippian culture, it was based on intensive maize agriculture, and its people built large towns with earth platforms, or mounds, supporting temples and rulers' residences.

Across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri, the Mississippians built the city of Cahokia, which may have had a population of 20,000. Cahokia contained hundreds of mounds. Its principal temple was built on the largest, a mound 30 m (100 ft) high and roughly about 110 m (about 360 ft) long and about 49 m (about 160 ft) wide (the largest such mound in North America, now part of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois).

During this time period, maize agriculture also became important in the Atlantic region, but no cities were built. See also Mound Builders.

The presence of Europeans in the Eastern Woodlands dates from at least AD 1000, when colonists from Iceland tried to settle Newfoundland. Throughout the 1500s, European fishers and whalers used the coast of Canada.

European settlement of the region began in the 1600s. It was not strongly resisted, partly because terrible epidemics had spread among the Native Americans of this region through contact with European fishers and with Spanish explorers in the Southeast. By this time the Mississippian cities had also disappeared, probably as a consequence of the epidemics.

The Native American peoples of the Eastern Woodlands included the Iroquois and a number of Algonquian-speaking peoples, including the Lenape, also known as the Delaware; the Micmac; the Narragansett; the Shawnee; the Potawatomi; the Menominee; and the Illinois.

This box was made by the Mi'kmaq (Micmac) people of the Atlantic Coast of North America. It is made of birchbark, and the design on top is made of porcupine quills. The Mi'kmaq used birchbark for many things, such as wigwam covers and cradle boards. Jerry Jacka

Some Eastern Woodlands peoples moved west in the 19th century; others remain throughout the region, usually in their own small communities.