Early American Civilization Timeline

By kgrant
  • 30,000 BCE

    Land Bridges form

    Land bridges form where sea levels are thought to have dropped during Ice Ages. Hunters could cross from Asia into the Americas this way.
  • 10,000 BCE

    Land Bridges disappear

    Land bridges are covered by sea water and people were unable to cross back.
  • Period: 4000 BCE to

    Inuit Civilization

    Live in the Alaska, Russia, and Canada. Eat mainly meat and still exist to present day.
  • Period: 3000 BCE to 1200

    Mound Builders

    Build earthen mounds to bury their dead and religious purposes.
  • Period: 1300 BCE to 400 BCE

    Olmec People

    The Olmec people lived along the Gulf Coast of southern Mexico. They grew corn, beans, and squash. The became farmers, fishers, artists, sculptors, and priests. They were the first Amercians to use stone in sculptures and architecture.
  • 1000 BCE

    Earthen Mounds dated

    Scientists date first earthen mounds.
  • 800 BCE

    Great Serpent Mound

    The Great Serpent Mound of the Aden people is built in the Ohio Valley
  • Period: 800 BCE to 100 BCE

    Adena People

    One of the first Mound Builders along the Ohio River
  • Period: 300 BCE to 900

    Mayan Culture

    The Mayans developed a complex culture in the forests of present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize of the Yucatan Peninsula. They used Maize(corn) as their main source of food and developed the corn tortilla.
  • Period: 100 BCE to 500

    Hopewell Mound Builders

    Mound builders discovered in the Ohio River area
  • Period: 200 to 1300

    Anasazi Culture

    A group of people who lived in the four corners of the southwest that used irrigation to water their farms in the desert.
  • Period: 700 to

    Mississippian Civilizations

    These people settled in the areas of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
  • 900

    Mayan civilization comes to an End

    Reasons are unknown as to why the Mayans disappeared. It may have been because of food shortages and war. Descendants still live in Guatemala and Mexico speaking the Mayan language and following the customs and traditions of their ancestors.
  • 1000

    Cahokia Mounds

    The Cahokia build small, round pile of earth to bury their dead along the Mississippi River.
  • 1100

    Aztec Civilization

    Aztec people settle in the Valley of Mexico.
  • 1300

    Anasazi people leave the four corner area

    The Anasazi people abandon their pueblos and cliff dwellings for smaller communities.
  • 1325

    Aztec people relocate

    The Aztec people move to Lake Texcoco.
  • Period: 1400 to 1572

    Incas Empire

    Known as the Children of the Sun became a large empire of the early American civilizations. They began in the Andes Mountains and settled their capital city of Cuzco in a mountain valley in southern Peru.
  • 1420

    Tenochtitlan City

    The Tenochtitlan Citiy emerged on an island of Lake Texcoco with the Aztecs.
  • 1428

    Aztec Alliance

    Itxcoatl, and Aztec leader, helped to form a three-way alliance with the Texcocans and the Tacubans to conquer rivals for influence in the region.
  • 1438

    Emperor Pachacuti

    Pachacuti came to power and started conquering neighboring communities. Pachacuti and his son, Toa Inca, reigned over an empire that spread more than three thousand miles from modern-day Columbia to northern Argentina and Chile.
  • 1500

    Early 1500's

    The Aztecs ruled over 5 to 6 million people, either by conquest or commerce.
  • 1519

    Aztec Civilization invaded

    Hernan Cortes, a Spanish conquistador, invades the Aztec Civilization and the Emperor Montezuma II dies.
  • 1521

    Aztec Civilization Ends

    The Spaniards defeat the Aztecs and the empire ends.
  • 1532

    Spanish invade Inca Empire

    The Spanish invade the Inca empire and rapidly declines after the last emperor in killed.
  • 1572

    The End of the Inca civilization

    The Inca Empire ends after Spanish invasion.
  • Mississippi civilizations End

    The Mississippian civilizations come to an end when Europeans arrive bring with them disease and death.