10,000 B.C.

• Perhaps as recently as 10,000 B.C. waves of Paleo-Siberians began to arrived in North America from Asia and dispersed throughout the Americas. Scholars disagree over the route taken by the first settlers to reach the North American Continent. The most accepted theory is that the Ancestors of the North American Indian crossed the Alaska - Siberian land bridge. There is a great deal of evidence to support the idea that the first Americans were nomadic hunters whose primary source of food was the meat of large mammals that grazed on the tundra in the interior of Berginia. It is speculated that hunters trekked around Beringia in small bands of perhaps 25 people. How many bands arrived in the New World before the water began to retreat it is not known. Although there is considerable debate concerning the arrival of the first immigrants, it is safe to say that the first Americans arrived sometime after 15,000 years ago.

• The precise identity of the first Americans is not known. However, archaeologists refer to them and their descendants for the next few millennia as Paleo Indians (Stone Age Indians). Their Asian origin is beyond dispute. Over a period of more than 25,000 years, the ancestors of the American Indian learned to survive two drastically different natural environments and steadily advanced from a primitive culture to a more sophisticated one. They learned how to use fire, develop weapons, tools and other kinds of paraphernalia essential for a successful life in the prehistoric age. They diversified their economy by adding gathering and invented useful ways to improve hunting through the use of decoys, game calls, traps, nets and the surround-and-jump kill. They learned to process foods with the stone metate, mano and wooden mortar and pestle and invented food preservation.

9,000 - 5000 B.C.

Hunters in North America, during what has been called the Clovis and Folsom periods (c.9,200-8,900 B.C.) used projectile points with fluted bases. It is believed the Clovis spear point was developed c. 11,000 B.C.. Clovis points have been found at mammoth kill sites, while smaller folsom points were used to hunt bison. The sources of stone were widespread, indicating that early North Americans were highly mobile.

• As the weather became warmer, big game species become extinct, including mastodons,wooly mammoths, big horn bison and many other big prey of the Paleo Indian began to disappear.
  
• During the period between 8,000 and 6000 B.C. the climate is warm enough to support cone bearing and deciduous trees.