Bianca Belmonte Sapien's Curriculum Unit

Anyone who is a parent can attest to being asked by their children “where do babies come from?” Knowing when and how to answer that question is a tricky thing for most parents. At some point in everyone’s life the question “where did I come from?” is asked. Humans all around the world trace their ancestors back far enough to develop a lineage or family history. But what is the history of the human family? Where did human beings come from and how did they come to America?

The controversy that has unfolded as scientists have attempted to answer this question plays out as an archeological drama. It begins with the origins of the first Americans, continuing with when and from where they came, how they arrived and what evidence supports these views. This story, or debate, will provide any teacher wishing to implement a unit about the peopling of the Americas sufficient background knowledge to do so.

The debate over the origins of the first Americans starts with the earliest claims made by anthropologists dating as far back as 30,000 or more years ago. Anthropologists are scientists who study the origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics and social customs and beliefs of humankind. The controversy over how people got to the Americas continues with Neanderthals who may or may not have moved across Siberia to homo sapiens who hunted big game and gathered food from the American landscape. Priests jumped into the debate as the first students of the American Indian culture and origin stating that these people were ripe for christening (Fagan). Archeologists willing to assert various hypotheses on the origins ranging from an Atlantic crossing to crossing Beringia via Siberia provided their opinion. Archeologists are people who study historic or prehistoric peoples and their cultures by analysis of their artifacts, inscriptions, monuments and other such remains, especially those that have been excavated. All the while keeping in mind those Native peoples believed, and still believe, their origin was America.

Additionally, the scientific community is drawn to debate how the first Americans arrived. Was it through an ice-free corridor, was it by skin boat along coastal shores, or via coastal migration and further inland movement?

The evidence is amazing; teeth, hair, bones, tools, animal and human. Sorting it all out fuels the debate. Did humans leave evidence for us to draw conclusions about their existence, or are the things found just products of nature? This is the information that must be understood for a teacher to lead students on their own archeological quest about the origins of Native Americans.

The goal of this curriculum unit is to introduce teachers and students to the basic arguments around the origin of Native American people. Students will learn about the archeological history and concepts associated with the peopling of the Americas. Scientific inquiry and the process of hypothesis testing will be integrated throughout. Students will join in the archeological debate surrounding the colonization of the Americas through an interpretation of the evidence. Students will discover the relevance of the origin of native peoples by connecting themselves to this history.

Academic Setting

Teaching at the Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) has shown me that all teachers need to develop curriculum that differentiates instruction for their students. JDC is an alternative school in the Albuquerque Public School district. We are classified as neglected and delinquent under Title 1. Our students range in age from 10-21 years old and come from various grade levels and schools. Classes are mixed by age and by grade, but students attend various courses as in a typical high school setting. Boys outnumber the girls by four to one. Our ethnically diverse population consists of 63% Hispanic, 30% Anglo, 3% American Indian, 3% African American and 1% other, such as Vietnamese.

The transient nature of our students greatly affects the curriculum. Approximately 1,200 students from several counties in New Mexico, pass through our school each year. The average stay is approximately 40 days. However, a student could be in our facility for a four day hold from a probation violation or could be held indefinitely awaiting trial as a serious youthful offender. Most students await adjudication for a crime, probation violation or rehabilitative placement.

Many of the students at my school require special education, most are at least one year below grade level in reading and math and yet each of my students still have a desire to participate and learn in school. Emotional trauma or substance abuse inhibits some of our students from academic achievement. Additionally, my students have very little experience using and applying technology in the classroom. However, our small teaching staff is highly trained to work with these students. More than half of the teachers have completed or are enrolled in a graduate program.

This unit is particularly designed for a multi-level social studies classroom. The class infuses history, geography, government and science to examine various events. Most of my students have Native American origins and are unaware of these aspects of their heritage. This unit will provide students an opportunity to explore theories of colonization of the Americas while developing cultural links between themselves and the material. They will debate theories, draw conclusions based on evidence, infuse technology, literacy, and art while learning according to their particular style.

Teaching about how people first came to the Americas is important to my students because this is where they live. For many of my students, home is all they know. Many have never traveled to another town let alone another state or country. Many of my students have poor geographic skills, little knowledge of history, and no understanding of the processes of scientific inquiry. This unit will expose students to these concepts through cultural study strengthening their understanding of the importance of having evidence to support a theory or assertion.

During our earth’s history, significant extended cooling of the atmosphere and oceans took place. Ice ages occur about every 150 million years, and last a few million years. Within each ice age are remarkable fluctuations known as glacials and interglacials: cold and warm phases that correspond to a cycle of about 100,000 years. Recognition of this glacial cycle required complex mathematical calculations, first worked out by a Yugoslav scientist, Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958) (Fairbridge).

Before 10,000 years ago, the American environment was quite different from what it is today. The period from about 9,000 years ago to about 2,000,000 years ago is called the Pleistocene glacial era or Ice Age. The last glaciation, called the Wisconsin in North America, was the most severe of all, and lasted from approximately 80,000 years ago until about 9,000 years ago, when the world's glaciers began their final retreat. During the Wisconsin, huge continental glaciers formed a deep ice cap that covered much of the northern half of the Northern Hemisphere. Like all previous glacial advances, the Wisconsin interrupted the hydrologic or water cycle. The natural, cyclical moisture pattern begins over the ocean where air currents pick up water vapor and transport it to land where it precipitates as rain, sleet, and snow. The moisture on the land eventually drains into rivers and returns to the oceans to continue the cycle. The formation of glaciers in the northern latitudes during the Pleistocene broke this chain. When the water vapor precipitated out as snow, instead of melting when spring came, it remained throughout the year. Year after year this same pattern held, with more and more snow piling up, and more and more water caught and locked into massive glacial complexes. One glacial complex, the Cordilleran, formed in western Canada while another, the Laurentide, formed in eastern Canada, centering on Hudson's Bay. Over thousands of years they eventually formed a huge ice sheet covering most of Canada, and reached an average height of one to two miles.

By locking up vast quantities of water, ocean levels dropped an estimated 250 to 350 feet. Both the Bering Sea and Strait are rather shallow, between 150-180 feet deep in many places. The drop in sea levels exposed a very wide and substantial land “bridge,” called Beringia, across the Bering Strait, linking northeast Asia and western Alaska. At 1,000 miles wide (north to south), and stretching from Siberia to Alaska, it was really more than a bridge -- it was a subcontinent, and it was exposed as long as the glaciers lasted. The drop in sea level also exposed the coastal plains of North America.

The southward extension of the Pleistocene ice cap also produced a very different type of climate in the rest of continental United States and Mexico from that of today. Today's interior arid plains and deserts were, in the last Ice-Age, a milder, cooler, and considerably wetter region of lush savannas (grassland), dense forest, and lakes, swamps, and bogs. Just to the south of the ice sheet's edge were the grasslands, cutting across what is now the Great Plains, the Midwest,and Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Further south was a broad band of boreal forest covering much of the middle part of the United States. Grasslands probably covered much of the lower-altitude lands in the western United States and in Mexico.

The coarse savanna grasses sustained large herds of very large herbivorous and exotic wildlife such as mammoths (elephant-like creatures with huge tusks, each weighing on the average six tons and standing nearly fourteen feet high at the shoulder), mastodons, giant bison standing 6 feet tall, and horses and camels. Added to the population of browsers were formidable animals like the Dire wolf, an enormous and now extinct species, and the giant ground sloth, and numerous species of predatory cats. This remarkable mega-fauna died out with the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the Ice-Age. Of course, there also were deer, elk, antelopes, beaver, rabbits, wolves, pig-like peccaries, and many other mammalian species along with salmon, sturgeon, trout, pike, whales, sea otters, seals, and innumerable bird species that survive today. These conditions would have been manageable for humans to live in, much like Eskimos in Canada or Alaska do today.

The earliest claims of settlement by humans in the Americas date to 100,000 or 200,000 years ago. A world famous scientist named Louis Leakey lead this theoretical camp based on stone tools found at Calico Hills in southern California (Fagan). Could Neanderthals from the Old World settle the New World? Between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals lived as skilled hunters and gatherers. Their name derives from the Neander Valley in Germany, where archeologists found one of the earliest skulls. Neanderthals had low sloping foreheads, large brow ridges and a large face without chins. Fossil evidence indicates that the Neanderthals occupied parts of Europe and the Middle East as early as 120,000 years ago until about 30,000 years ago, when they disappeared from the fossil record. Their fossils have been found in Eastern Russia where scattered Neanderthal hunting bands were venturing onto the frigid, windswept plains of Siberia (Fagan). Although this gradual movement may have been seasonal, ancient lake-bed deposits indicate climatic conditions improved, allowing people to move east without specialized tools. Were the tools found by Leakey man-made or stones worn by natural processes? A criticism of the Calico Hills find is that these artifacts appeared to be of natural occurrence because they were only chipped on one side. Humanly modified rocks found at other locations were modified or chipped on both sides (Powell).

Modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens, first appeared more than 100,000 years ago. In 1997, a team of scientists analyzed mitochondrial DNA—a DNA form inherited only from the mother and particularly useful for determining ancient ancestral relations—from a Neanderthal skull. The analysis showed that the lines leading to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens began to diverge over 500,000 years ago and that Neanderthals and modern humans did not interbreed (Mann). Fully modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens took over by 35,000 years ago leaving the Neanderthal to die out or become assimilated due to demographic factors.

The first people believed to move across Asia and down into America were called Paleo-Indians. Most archeologists date their appearance between 14,000 and 12,000, toward the end of the last Ice Age. These people are considered the first Americans. The word paleo (PAY-leo) means ancient or old. There is debate based upon the findings of some archeologists and suggestions are being made that they were not Asians, but different ethnic groups from places very different from what scientists first thought (Begley and Murr).

One theory states that these people moved across Siberia eventually finding the thousand-mile wide bridge of land leading to Alaska. Scientists agree that glaciers exposed this land bridge because they held large amounts of the earth’s water. The Bering land bridge is the edge of the North American continental shelf. Fourteen thousand years ago, the lower ocean would have created a surface for animals and people to walk and live on. This theory has been a cornerstone in American paleontology and archeology for hundreds of years (Dixon). It not only explains how people got here, but also how plants and large mammals came from Asia to America.

These early colonizers probably chose a type of environment similar to the one they left. There were large spruce and fir forests, lakes with clear water and lush grasslands. The climate was wetter and cooler than today. Over many centuries, beginning about 11,500 years ago, it is believed that Paleo-Indians followed herds of big animals, such as mammoths, southward along the edge of glaciers or down the coast. Because these people were nomads, they walked and moved around to hunt or scavenge game, to gather nuts and berries and to escape drastic climates.

Some anthropologists are split on exactly how Paleo-Indians migrated. Migration is the movement of people, especially of whole groups, from one place, region, or continent to another, particularly with the intention of making permanent settlement in a new location. In order for people to migrate across the land bridge, they also would have had to endure harsh temperatures around the glacial sheets, which blanketed parts of Alaska, Canada, and the Northern most areas of the U.S. Anthropologists postulate an ice-free corridor that allowed nomads to walk south into America. Archeologists have found evidence to support the existence of people along this route, such as the Mesa site in what would have been Beringia. Others claim the frigid temperatures and lack of food supplies would have made this an impossible journey.

Instead, they suggest an economy based on marine mammal hunting leading to a coastal migration. It is believed that early Americans used watercraft, possibly made of animal skins, to navigate the shores of the Americas. These people migrated along the coast with later inland movement. Movement along the coastal regions would have required no new technology for hunting, living or transportation because of the continuous marine coastal-intertidal ecosystem. Therefore, this model explains why the Pacific coast of the Americas could have been occupied thousands of years before the continental ice in North America ever melted. This theory helps to validate findings in South America that may be older than some findings in the north.

What made these early people come? Were they influenced by demographic factors such as population increases or environmental changes? A group of people may migrate in response to the lure of a more favorable region or because of some adverse condition or combination of conditions in their home environment. Most anthropologists who use archeology to reconstruct past events and lifestyles believe that non-nomadic peoples are disinclined to leave the places to which they are accustomed, and that most historic and prehistoric migrations were stimulated by a deterioration of home conditions. Did it get colder? Did food supplies diminish? Did resources diminish because of nature or overpopulation? Did vegetation become depleted? Did other areas look more appealing as the ice melted 11.5 to 10,000 years ago?

The specific stimuli for as American migration may have been either natural or social causes. Among the natural causes are changes in climate, stimulating a search for warmer or colder lands; volcanic eruptions or floods that render sizable areas uninhabitable; and periodic fluctuations in rainfall. Examples of social causes are an inadequate food supply caused by population increase, intertribal conflict, marriages and a desire for material gain.

One of the most contentious questions about the Native Americans is “when” did their ancestors arrive in the Americas, and archaeologists use a wide range of techniques and methods to answer this question. Stratigraphy is a geological technique which studies the order and relative position of the strata or layers of the earth's crust. Radiocarbon dating helps archaeologists determine the age of artifacts by providing the chronological control. Carbon-14 is also used in the technique called radiocarbon dating (see Dating Methods), which permits the estimation of the age of fossils and other organic materials. Carbon-14 is continuously produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays and is incorporated into all living matter. As carbon-14 decays, with a half-life of 5760 years, the proportion of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in a given specimen is a measure of its approximate age. Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating allows scientists to compare a wood sample with the established chronology of trees. A tree’s growth as evidenced by rings in its trunk, can be matched to periods of heavy rain or drought. Molecular biologists are able to extract, clone, and amplify lengths of DNA contained within bone collagen, and in so doing they can obtain direct evidence of human lineages at the molecular level.

Archeologists differentiate groups of early people based on their tools. Modified bone, antler, and ivory indicate that man used animals for tools. Culturally modified stones indicate that man used rocks as weapons, for food processing and to make clothing and shelter. The way that natural elements were modified distinguishes groups of people from one another. Anthropologists believe that different tools mean different types of people living at different places at different times. For example, Folsom points found in a bison near Folsom, NM are different from 9,000 year old Cascade points found in a human pelvic bone in Washington state which are different from a 14,000 Dyuktai point from Siberia.

Stone spear points found in Clovis, NM, in the 1930’s were dated using radio carbon technologies to about 11,000 BP and held in the highest regard as evidence of the oldest human settlement in the New World (Roberts and Roberts). Stone cores of chert, flint, obsidian, basalt, or quartz were used by early man to strike a flake from which spear points were made. Archeologists postulate these spearpoints were fluted to give a flat surface where they were mounted onto foreshafts, which were then mounted onto a valuable spear. If a hunter stuck a spear into an animal that was not killed, the spear could be recovered even if the point and foreshaft remained in the animal. Today, “Flint Knappers” recreate this toolmaking process producing copies of ancient artifacts.

However, these spear points indicate a connection not to Asian migration but to stone tools of the Solutrean culture of France and the Iberian Peninsula. Each of the peoples made beveled, crosshatched bone rods, spear points of mammoth ivory, and triangular stone scrapers. Clovis and Solutrean projectiles are wider, flatter and thinner. Not everything found at Solutrean is found in Clovis, but everything in Clovis is found in Solutrean (Parfit). Anthropologists use these similar tools to suggest that early Americans cruised along ice sheets and seasonal pack ice in the Atlantic from England to Nova Scotia (Begley and Murr). They suggest this occurred 18,000 to 24,000 years ago. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Solutrean culture included navigation, deep-sea fishing, or marine-mammal hunting.

Archaeologists examining many early Alaska sites find microblades, which were probably embedded in the sides of bits of antler or bone to make tools like knives. These types of tools are seldom found at Clovis sites (Parfit). So how is their existence explained if early people came across the Atlantic? People must have traveled in both directions.

Widely separate human populations are marked by a number of physical differences. The majority of these differences represent adaptations to local environmental conditions, a process that some anthropologists believe began with the spread of Homo erectus to all parts of the Old World One adaptation is how humans living in very cold parts of Northern Europe and Asia developed larger noses to be able to breath colder air. Other cranial adaptations occurred because muscles used to chew different foods leave indentations on the skull. These measurable effects of adaptation to the environment give anthropologists data to make hypotheses.

Spirit Caveman found in what is now Nevada gave anthropologists a reason to think that not all Native Americans ancestors are Asian. His face is not flattened or wide, his nose is not narrow. He has a long head and a wide nose, a forward face and a strong chin. By measuring distances between different points on a skull, anthropologists are able to identify a skull as likely belonging to a particular ethnic group through a cranial profile. Measurements are matched to a data base containing other cranial measurements from all around the world. This man resembles the Aboriginal Ainu of Japan or other East Asians (Begley and Murr).

Kennewick Man had a narrow face, prominent nose, an upper jaw that juts out slightly and a long, narrow braincase and was believed to be 9,300 years old. His skull was examined by physical anthropologists and found to exhibit Caucasoid characteristics. In fact, the man most resembles a cross between the Ainu and the Polynesians (Begley and Murr).

Buhl Woman, found in 1989, died 10,600 years ago. Archeologists say that she is also most similar to today’s Polynesians. They were able to study her bones using Carbon 14 methods to determine her diet consisted of primarily terrestrial foods supplemented by marine foods. She ate processed meat and suffered from regular periods of dietary of disease related stress (Dixon).

Dental evidence suggests that humans adapted to eating different diets. Those who had a more meaty diet had bigger, sharper teeth. Teeth themselves have markers indicating evidence of plant diets, marine diets, meat or bone marrow diets. Small pits on the surface of the teeth are evidence of rock fragments in foods, such as those phytoliths that would be present from grinding corn on a metate with a mano. Other markings, such as a high amount of striations, or groove like features, and polish of the tooth enamel indicate plant and meat diet. Christy Turner recognized dental patterns and their applicability in grouping early colonizers of America Sundadonty is a dental pattern shared with people of Southeast Asia and prehistoric American populations (Dixon). Sinodony is shared among most Native Americans and people from northeastern Asia. Approximately twenty dental traits, such as the shape of tooth crowns and the number of tooth roots, distinguish the patterns. However, these patterns were based on two skeletons dated to 7,000 years before present time. Is this enough evidence to justify a pattern among early man?

Although tools found at sites in the Americas suggested that early colonizers tracked across the New World around 11,000 years ago, findings at Monte Verde in Chile indicate that man made his way down to South America much sooner. A campsite revealed some 30 hunter-gathers lived beside a creek 35 miles inland of the Pacific Ocean. The band lived in tent like homes held together with cord and covered with bark and mastodon hide. Outside they had areas designated for work and fire pits or hearths lined with clay. Remains of chewed Boldo leaves containing analgesic and mild hallucinogens, which suggest that one of the tents may have served as a hospital or spiritual area. The Monte Verdeans ate a varied diet consisting of sea fare, birds, or mastodon. These artifacts were dated to 12,500 years ago. Areas that date more than 11,000 years old are known as pre-Clovis sites.

Other sites once dismissed as misdated because they were pre-Clovis are now being re-examined. Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania where a rockshelter, charcoal, stone tools and woven material were buried has been dated between 14,000 and 17,000 years old. Saltville in Virginia where stone, bone tools, fire cracked rock, and mastodon bones were discovered has been dated to 14,000 years old. In Cactus Hill, Virginia, researchers found 15,050 year-old flakes underneath 10,920 year old Clovis material. This was the same at the topper site on the Savannah River. Could these earlier people have traveled a different coastal route bringing them farther east?

Based on these findings, anthropologists believe that instead of an arrival of 14,000 years ago, some now place humans in the Americas 15,000, 20,000 and even 30,000 years ago. Some say that instead of a single first migration, people came in a complex series of waves (Parfit).

Unfortunately, due to the secured and transient nature of the residents I teach, I am not allowed to have students read prior to class or as homework. This makes providing background knowledge a difficult, if not impossible, task. Therefore, in order to implement a unit, I have to treat each day as a new day. Teaching a unit is still possible, however, some students may not have been in class the first few days of a unit, while others leave during the unit and never finish. Additionally, my classes are of mixed grades and subjects pertaining to social studies. Therefore, the standards and assessments are individualized for students as young as 10.

According to the New Mexico State Board of Education, the guiding principles of effective curriculum in social studies involves students being able to study primary and secondary sources, learn to use electronic media, read and interpret data, become familiar with specialized vocabulary of anthropology, and learn to draw conclusions logically from available evidence (State Board of Education, 2001). Through reading, writing, speaking and listening, students will ask important questions and frame reasoned opinions and arguments based on evidence pertaining to Native American origins. Together, the classes will explore through reading, thinking critically, asking questions, hands-on research, and/or discussion.

Throughout the unit, students will gather information in a notebook/journal. The teacher will guide students in their discovery learning activities, which may include viewing archeological findings, examining biological data, taking a virtual field trip or interviewing archeologists. Mini-presentations by the teacher will take place. Students will read various selections pertaining to theories of origin of Native Americans. Based on their questions and findings, students will develop presentations that will be used to teach other students about a theory they selected. These presentations would be shared with other classes in the facility. Presenters would be asked to answer questions from the audience and provide examples. Students would then reflect on the research process and findings in journals as they frame their opinions based on the evidence.

Content Standard I: Students are able to identify important people and events in order to analyze significant patterns, relationships, themes, ideas, beliefs, and turning points in New Mexico, United States and world history in order to understand the complexity of the human experience.

5-8 Benchmark I-A- New Mexico: Explore and explain how people and events have influenced the development of New Mexico up to the present day. Students will describe the characteristics of other indigenous peoples that had an affect upon New Mexico’s development (e.g., …nomadic bands,…noting their development of tools).

5-8 Benchmark I-C- World: Compare and contrast major historical eras, events, and figures from ancient civilizations to the Age of Exploration. Students will describe the characteristics of early societies, including the development of tools and adaptation to environments.

5-8 Benchmark I-D- Skills: Research historical events and people from a variety of perspectives. Students will gather, organize and interpret information using a variety of media and technology. Students will use effective communication skills and strategies to share research findings.

9-12 Benchmark I-D- Skills: Use critical thinking skills to understand and communicate perspectives of individuals, groups, and societies from multiple contexts. Students will use thinking and decision-making skills. Students will develop and use communication skills.

Content Standard II: Students will understand how physical, natural, and cultural processes influence where people live, the ways in which people live, and how societies interact with one another and their environments.

5-8 Benchmark II-A: Analyze and evaluate the characteristics and purposes of geographic tools, knowledge, skills and perspectives and apply them to explain the past, present, and future in terms of patterns, events and issues. Students will make and use different kinds of maps, globes, charts and databases. Students will draw complex and accurate maps from memory and interpret them to answer questions about the location of physical features. Students will describe patterns and processes of migration and diffusion. Students will provide a historic overview of patterns of population expansion into the West by the many diverse groups of people (e.g., Native Americans)

5-8 Benchmark II-B: Explain the physical and human characteristics of places and use this knowledge to define regions, their relationships with other regions, and their patterns of change. Students will describe human and natural characteristics of places.

5-8 Benchmark II-E: Understand how economic, political, cultural, and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, and their interdependence, cooperation, and conflict. Students will explain how human migration impacted places, societies, and civilizations.

5-8 Benchmark II-F: Understand the effects of interactions between human and natural systems in terms of changes in meaning, use, and relative importance of resources. Students will understand how resources impact daily life. Students will describe how human modifications to physical environments and use of resources in one place often lead to changes in other places

Content Standard: The student employs appropriate reading strategies to read and interpret increasingly complex texts for a variety of purposes.

6-8 Benchmark: The students demonstrates competence with reading processes to comprehend, analyze, interpret, and evaluate a wide variety of informational texts across content areas.

9-12 The student develops and demonstrates proficiency with a variety of reading processes to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a wide variety of informational texts across content areas.

Content Standard: The student responds to, examines, and critiques historically or culturally significant issues and events portrayed in literature that both illustrate and affect people, society, and individuals.

6-8 Benchmark: The student examines literature from a variety of authors, cultures, and genre and makes connections among a variety of literary works.

9-12 Benchmark: The student critiques and evaluates the literary and social merit of a variety of historically and culturally significant works.

Content Standard: The student writes effectively for different audiences and purposes using appropriate writing strategies and conventions.

6-8 Benchmark: The student develops and demonstrates proficiency and competence in writing strategies and conventions across content areas to describe, narrate, express, explain, persuade, and analyze critically for a variety of purposes and audiences.

9-12 Benchmark: The student develops and demonstrates fluency and style in writing and a command of writing conventions across content areas to describe, narrate, express, explain, persuade, and analyze for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Strand IV: Expressive Language: Speaking

Content Standard: The student speaks effectively for different audiences and purposes using appropriate speaking strategies and conventions.

6-8 Benchmark: The student develops and demonstrates proficiency and competence in speaking strategies and conventions in appropriate speaking conventions to describe, narrate, express, explain, persuade, and analyze critically for a variety of purposes and audiences.

9-12 Benchmark: The student develops and demonstrates fluency and style in speaking and a command of speaking conventions across content areas to describe, narrate, express, explain, persuade, and analyze for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Content Standard: The student demonstrates, analyzes, evaluates, and reflects upon the skills and processes used to communicate by listening to and viewing a variety of auditory and visual works.

6-8 Benchmark: The student comprehends, analyzes, and interprets formal and informal auditory and visual works, including multimedia presentations.

9-12 Benchmark: The student critically evaluates the effectiveness of a variety of auditory and visual works, including multimedia presentations.

Content Standard: The student conducts and compiles research data, synthesizes findings, and develops an original conclusion to increase personal and community depth of knowledge.

6-8 Benchmark: The student gathers and uses research information to analyze issues across content areas.

9-12 Benchmark: The student analyzes, synthesizes, and evaluates information to solve problems across subject areas.

First, introduce the unit as a unit on the origin of people in the Americas (North, Central and South America). Put the following questions on the board without answers. Have students write in a unit journal their answer to one or any of the questions (10 minutes).

Where do you come from?
            How do you think the first people came to America?
            What would make you move to another place?
             What kinds of evidence does a person leave when they have been camping, fishing or                 hunting?
              Who are native Americans? Are you?

Second, ask students to fill out the first two sections of a K-W-L chart. This will act as a pretest of what students know and want to learn about the topic. The “L” column, what did you learn? Chart to be used at the end of a unit to self-assess learning. Discuss journal entries and ask for examples to put on a group K-W-L chart to be displayed in class.

Goal: To make a map of the geographic area through which migrations occurred bringing people to the Americas.

Materials/Resources: Overhead projector, transparent and paper maps of Siberia, North America, Central and South America, Glacial movement/corridor maps. Atlas, pencils, markers, 11x17 white paper, globes.

Instruction: Ask students to think about what they already know about the geographic location of the Americas. Using a globe, have students locate the areas. Next, have students locate Siberia, the Bering Sea, and Canada. Discuss importance of these geographic locations as they pertain to the peopling of the Americas. Ask: What impact would the geographic features of the land have on people? On migration? On animals? On building a permanent settlement? What did America look like 10-12,000 years ago? Where were the bodies of water? What natural processes was the earth experiencing? Where would it make sense for people to live?

Next, use a blank map to show glaciation and the ice-free corridor. Have students visualize what it must have been like to live around glaciers.

Have students draw on their paper map as you draw on the transparency. Trace the routes of possible movement of homo sapiens across Asia, Siberia, Beringia and the Americas. Use different colors to show the different migrations: blue for ice free corridor, red for coastal migration, green for inland movement, orange for movement across Asia.

Assessment: Observe students as they mark maps. Ask students to explain the map to a partner. Listen to the students as they speak to their partners. Place into unit journal for culminating activity.

Modification: Explain in native language, pair ESL student with peer, provide a marked map and have the student trace the map with their finger.

Extension: Have students write a story about the geographic movement of Americans.

Goal: Students will explore various texts to develop background knowledge while charting information for future use.

Materials/Resources: Various books, articles, web sites on the Origins of Native Americans, paper, pencils.

Instruction: Allow students to explore text. Instruct them to skim the books, read titles, headings and captions. Look at the pictures. Look at several books. Take notes on what you think is important about the story of how people came to the Americas.

Assessment: Circle the room, ask probing questions about what they have found. Observe their notetaking. Place into unit journal for culminating activity.

Modification: Explain in native language, provide picture books/bilingual. Work in pairs or small groups.

Materials/Resources: Chalkboard, chalk, bingo sheets, bingo chips, pencils, vocabulary and definitions.

Instruction: Use the bingo sheet to collect 24 vocabulary words. Write the words randomly on the sheet. Collect pencils. Play various bingo games (four corners, “T”, blackout, etc.) give the definition and context of the vocabulary word, have students say the words as they search and cover the word with a marker. Have students apply the words by restating the application through content or by saying what the word means in their own words. Ask: What is a ____?

Anthropologist	Paleo-Indians	Band
Neanderthals	Mammoth	Marrow
Homo Sapiens	Bison	Colonization
Beringia	Nomadic	Evidence
Siberia	Folsom
Glacier	Clovis
Pleistocene	chert
Migration	artifact
Hearth	Hypothesis
Pre-Clovis

Assessment: Circle the room and check papers for completeness. Ask randomly for definitions or context for vocabulary to check for understanding. Place into unit journal for culminating activity.

Modification: Explain in native language, provide a sheet with words already recorded, sound out words and/or provide definitions.

Extension: Have students write a story about the first Americans using the vocabulary.

Goal: Students will explore specific texts that explain a theory of origin of Native Americans and gather evidence to support the theory.

Materials/Resources: Literature, paper, pencils, Encarta CD-Roms, Internet and computers.

Instruction: Students will use texts to take notes on a specific theory of origin. They can make webs, lists, outlines or fill in a chart (who, what, where, when, how, why). Each student should gather at least 1 page of notes in any format.

Assessment: Review notes for content. Check for answers to who, what, where, when, how, why. Place into unit journal for culminating activity.

Modification: Explain in native language, provide bilingual materials, pair with peer.

Goal: Students will view and interpret videos that explain a theory of origin of Native Americans and gather evidence to support the theory.

Materials/Resources: Video on the first Americans (Nova. Mystery of the First Americans PBS), paper and pencils.

Instruction: Students will use listening and viewing skills to gather more information on the peopling of the Americas. Students will write down 10 facts that support their idea of how people came to the Americas. Students can make webs, lists, outlines or fill in a chart (who, what, where, when, how, why). Discussion Questions: Did the film convince you of a theory of origin? Why?

Assessment: Review notes for content. Check for answers to who, what, where, when, how, why. Place into unit journal for culminating activity.

Modification: Explain in native language, provide bilingual materials, pair with peer.

Goal: Students will make visual representations of spear points, skulls, teeth or campsites as evidence to support their theories.

Materials/Resources: Clay, paper, paper mache, cardboard, various art materials, realia, pictures of spearpoints, skulls, campsites.

Instruction: Tell students that for people to believe their theory of how people came to the Americas, they have to prove that the people were here. They will make artifacts to show naysayers as they make their theoretical presentations. View the film, The Art of Flint Knapping Companion Video. Show the books on tools and artifacts. Students should create something that would prove to someone that the people were there (picture of campsite, model of hunting tools, human artifacts (teeth, bones, skulls).

Assessment: Observe students as they make their models. Look for patterns between their model and examples in books, video. Place into unit journal for culminating activity.

Extension: Have students make models of things that we would leave a future archeologist.

Goal: Students will create a visual representation of theory (poster, Power Point, storyboard) accompanied by narrative explaining origin theory. Which theory and what is your evidence?

Materials/Resources: Various sizes and colors of paper, cardboard, disks, computers, powerpoint software, transparencies, pens, markers, pencils.

Instruction: Students will synthesize their notes and models into a class presentation. First have students make a presentation outline based on the assessment criteria. The presentation should include: the theory, timeframe of arrival, evidence, location and enough background so that the story of how Americans first came is clearly presented. Students should rehearse their presentations with a partner who has the same theory. Presentations will have no designated length as long as all requirements are met. Students with the same theory may present together.

Set ground rules before allowing any speakers. Students will be respectful and hold any questions or comments until the end. Audience will make a chart while they listen to the presentations indicating name of student, which theory of migration (why/how), timeframe (when), evidence (what), location (where). Place notes in unit journal for culminating activity.

Students will assign a value of good, fair, or poor to the presentation based on the following rubric:

Instruction: Explain that this self-assessment concludes the unit. What can you fill in for the “learned” column? What do you still want to know? Have students look through their unit journals to see what they have learned. Students can work in small groups or individually.

Assessment: K-W-L chart, observe students go through the self-assessment process.

Extension: Have students make K-W-L charts on different topics. Allow students to check out books for further reading.

Begley, Sharon and Andrew Murr. “Who were the first Americans?” Newsweek. 1999: 40-57.

Carbon, Microsoft� Encarta� 98 Encyclopedia. � Microsoft Corporation, 1993-1997.

Corbishley, Mike. What Do We Know About Prehistoric People?, New York: Peter Bedrick Books 1994.

Dixon, James. Bones Boats and Bison. The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1999.

Fagan, Brian M. The Great Journe: The Peopling of Ancient America. Thames and Hudson, 1987.

Fairbridge, Rhodes W. Ice Ages. Microsoft� Encarta� 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation, 1993-1997.

Gore, Rick. “The Most Ancient Americans.” National Geographic. Oct 1997: 92-99.

Mann, Alan. Human Evolution. Microsoft� Encarta� 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation, 1993-1997.

Migration. Microsoft� Encarta� 98 Encyclopedia. � Microsoft Corporation, 1993-1997.

Nobel, David Grant. 101 Questions About Ancient Indians of the Southwest. Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, 1998.

Parfit, Michael. “Hunt for the First Americans.” National Geographic. December 2000, 40-67.

Roberts, Calvin A. and Susan A. Roberts. A History of New Mexico. Second Revised Edition. Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, 1991.

Smith, Howard E. All About Arrowheads and Spear Points. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989.

Thomas, David Hurst. Exploring Native North America. Oxford University Press, 1999.

Bettinger, Robert. Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory. New York: Plenum Press, 1991.

Finnegan, M. “A Migration Model for Northwest North America.” Conference on Prehistory and Paleoecology of W. N. America and the Subarctic. U. Calgary. 1974.

Gruhn, R. “Linguistic evidence in support of the coastal route of the earliest entry into the New World.” Man 23, 1994: 77-100.

Hunt, C.B. Natural Regions of the United States and Canada. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1974.

Kehoe, Alice Beck. The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Archaeology. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.

Klein, R.G. “The archaeology of modern human origins.” Evol. Anth 1, 1994: 5-14.

Kroeber, A.L. “Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America.” Archaeology and Ethnology, No. 38, 1939.

Lahr, M.M. and R. Foley. “Multiple dispersals and modem human origins.” Evol. Anth. 3, 1994: 48-60.

Lampl, M. and B. Blumberg. “Blood polymorphisms and the origins of New World populations.” In The First Americans, ed. Laughlin and Harper. New York: Gustav Fisher, 1979.

McGuire, Randall. “Archeology and the First Americans.” American Anthropologist 94(4) 1992: 816-836.

Meltzer, J.D. “Pleistocene peopling of the Americas.” Evol. Anth. 1, 1993: 157-169.

Rodgers, A., Martin, L.D., and T.D. Nicklas. “Ice age geography and the distribution of native North American languages.” Biogeography 17, 1990: 131-43.

Sciulli, P.W. “Dental Evolution in Prehistoric Native Americans of the Ohio Valley Area. I. Wear and Pathology.” Paleopathology 9, 1997: 1-40.

Spencer, R.F. and J.D. Jennings. The Native Americans. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

Steele, D.G. and J.F. Powell. “Paleobiology of the First Americans.” Evol. Anth. 2, 1993: 138-146.

Wetterstrom, W. Food, Diet and Population at Prehistoric Aroyo Hondo Pueblo, New Mexico. Sante Fe: School of American Research Press, 1986.

Welcome Back to the Stone Age With Woody Blackwell: Beginning and Intermediate Flint Knapping. Native Treasures. Georgetown, TX

Provides students a virtual visit to Beringia's tundra from the classroom. Information on the Bering Land Bridge.

Explains how Beringia was created. Provides students with understanding of glacial formation.

Archaeology, Biology and Native American Origins seminar contact through Albuquerque Teachers Institute. Leader: Joseph F.Powell Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico.

Anthropology Explored: The Best of Smithsonian. A History of Anthropology at the Smithsonian (1897-1997)

The Anthropology Outreach Office provides leaflets, bibliographies, and teacher's packets on a variety of anthropological topics. All materials are free of charge. A complete listing of resources is available upon request.

NOVA Online. Mystery of the First Americans. Story about specialists seeking to explain Paleo-American origins ... populations, cultural groups, and languages found among modern Native Americans.

Archeoquest: Investigating Native American Origins

Introduction

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