page_title: United States
section_title: Indigenous peoples and pre-Columbian history
hierarchical_section_title: United States / History / Indigenous peoples and pre-Columbian history
caption_attribution_description: English: Mesa Verde NP - Cliff Palace This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 66000251
context_page_description: The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country mostly located in central North America, between Canada and Mexico. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, it is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area. With a population of 328 million as of 2019, it is the third most populous country in the world. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City.
  Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Disputes with Great Britain led to the American Revolutionary War, which established independence. In the late 18th century, the U.S. began vigorously expanding across North America, gradually acquiring new territories, oftentimes killing and displacing Native Americans, and admitting new states; by 1848, the United States spanned the continent.
context_section_description: It has been generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival. The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas. This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the forerunners of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts and Eskimos.
  Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly complex, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. Its city state Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States. In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloan culture developed from centuries of agricultural experimentation. The Iroquois Confederacy, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established at some point between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Most prominent along the Atlantic coast were the Algonquian tribes, who practiced hunting and trapping, along with limited cultivation.
  Estimating the native population of North America at the time of European contact is difficult. Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution estimated that there was a population of 92,916 in the south Atlantic states and a population of 473,616 in the Gulf states, but most academics regard this figure as too low. Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting 1,100,000 along the shores of the gulf of Mexico, 2,211,000 people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5,250,000 in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries and 697,000 people in the Florida peninsula.
caption: The Cliff Palace, built by ancient Native American Puebloans around 1190 AD
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A3100 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.6.6", "Image DateTime": "2011:06:05 14:16:40", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.6.7", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "302", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3500", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6977", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:04:29 14:13:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:04:29 14:13:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "223/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "213/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "1137/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1000000/61", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1000000/61", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape"}