This is a timeline of in North American prehistory, from 1000 BC until European contact.
Timeline
- For times predating 1000 BC see Archaic period (North America)#Timeline.
- 1000 BC–800 AD: The Norton tradition develops in the Western Arctic along the Alaskan shore of the Bering Strait
- 1000 BC: Athapaskan-speaking natives arrive in Alaska and northwestern North America, possibly from Siberia.
- 1000 BC: Pottery making widespread in the Eastern Woodlands.
- 1000 BC–100 AD: Adena culture takes form in the Ohio River valley, carving fine stone pipes placed with their dead in gigantic burial mounds.[1] See Prehistory of Ohio.
- 500–1 BC: Basketmaker phase of early Ancestral Pueblo culture begins in the American Southwest.
- 500 BC–AD 1000: Plains Woodland period on the Great Plains[2]
- 300 BC: Mogollon people, possibly descended from the Cochise tradition, appear in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico.
- 200 BC–500 AD: The Hopewell tradition begins flourishing in much of the East, with copper mining centered in the Great Lakes region.[1]
- 1 BC: Some central and eastern prairie peoples learned to raise crops and shape pottery from the mound builders to their east.
- 500 BC–700 AD: Old Bering Sea culture thrives in the western Arctic
- 50 BC–800 AD: Ipiutak culture thrives in the western Arctic.[1]
- 1 AD: Some central and eastern prairie peoples learned to raise crops and shape pottery from the mound builders to their east.
- 100–1000: Weeden Island culture flourishes in coastal Florida. They are known for their extraordinarily well-preserved wood carvings.
- 200: The Adena culture of the Ohio River valley evolves into the Hopewellian exchange.
- 200–800: Late Eastern Woodlands cultures flourish in the Eastern North America.[1]
- 200–1450: Hohokam cultures flourish in Arizona and north Mexico[1]
- 400: Cultivation of maize (corn) begins in the American Southeastern Woodlands and soon reaches the Northeastern Woodlands. Originally domesticated in Mesoamerica, maize transforms the Eastern Agricultural Complex.
- 400: Ancestral Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest weave extraordinarily long nets for trapping small animals and make yucca fibers into large sacks and bags.
- 500: Late Basketmaker II Era phase of Ancestral Pueblo culture diminishes in the American Southwest.
- 700: Basketmaker III Era of the American Southwest evolve into the early Pueblo culture.
- 755±65—890±65: likely dates of the Blythe Geoglyphs being sculpted by ancestral Quechan and Mojave peoples in the Colorado Desert, California[3]
- 700–800: Ancestral Pueblo people of the American Southwest or Oasisamerica transition from pit houses to multi-story adobe and stone apartments called pueblos.
- 800–1500: Mississippian culture spawns powerful chiefdoms of great agricultural Moundbuilders throughout the Eastern woodlands.
- 875: Patayan people begin farming along the Colorado River valley in western Arizona and eastern California.
- 900: Earliest event recorded in the Battiste Good (1821–22, Sicangu Lakota) Winter count[4]
- 900: Ancestral Pueblo culture dominates much of the American Southwest.
- 900: American Southwestern tribes trade with Indigenous peoples of Mexico to obtain copper bells cast through the lost-wax technique.
- 915 (exact date): Construction begins at Pueblo Bonito, the largest Ancestral Pueblo Great House.
- 1000: Discovery of Vinland by Leif Ericson and Norse colonization of North America.
- 1000-1200: Acoma Pueblo and Old Oraibi are established, become the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States[5][6][7]
- 1000–1750: Fort Ancient culture, a non-Mississippian culture emerges in modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana, and western West Virginia.
- 1000–1780: Plains Village period on Great Plains, from North Dakota to Texas[2]
- 1070: Great Serpent Mound built in Ohio.[8]
- 1100: Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon reaches apex in size at 800 rooms[9]
- 1100: Hohokam culture reaches apex in present-day Arizona[9]
- Scandinavians briefly settled Vinland (likely l'Anse aux Meadows on the Canadian Maritime island of Newfoundland) early in the century and perhaps ventured as far south as New England.
- The Thule people began absorbing the old Dorset culture in Arctic Alaska.
- 900–1150: Pueblo II Era in the American Southwest[10]
- 1000–1200: Early Mississippian culture in the Eastern Woodlands[11]
- 1000–1200: Acoma Pueblo and Old Oraibi are established, and become the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States[12][13][14]
- 1142: League of the Iroquois is founded, and the Great Law of Peace is adopted by the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Oneida people.[15] Wampum invented by Ayenwatha, which the Haudenosaunee used to record information.[16]
- 1150–1350: Pueblo III Era in th