sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, thought that he had arrived in the East Indies. The Americas came to be known as the "West Indies", a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the names "Indies" and "Indian", which implied some kind of racial or cultural unity among the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. This unifying concept, codified in law, religion, and politics, was not originally accepted by indigenous peoples but has been embraced by many over the last two centuries.[citation needed] Even though the term "Indian" does not include the Aleuts, Inuit, or Yupik peoples, these groups are considered indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Question: What incorrect term for the indigenous population originated with Christopher Columbus?

Question: Where did Columbus believe he had arrived?

Question: Because of Columbus' mistake, the Americas came to be known as what?

Question: What is implied by the global term of "Indian"?

Question: Despite fitting under the umbrella label of "Indian", Aleuts, Inuit and Yupik peoples are still considered to be what to the Americas?
Passage: Although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in Amazonia, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas. Although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires.

Question: What were many of the indigenous people of the Americas traditionally?

Question: What remains as a testament to the time and work the indigenous people spent cultivating the flora of the Americas?

Question: What did many of the societies practice a mix of?

Question: Large cities, chiefdoms, monuments and empires were just some of the things created by which peoples?

Question: What did many segments of the indigenous population also practice?
Passage: Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous peoples; some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, and Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, but also cater to modern needs. Some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.

Question: Belize, Chile and Greenland are just some countries with sizable populations of what peoples?

Question: Where are there still populations of indigenous peoples?

Question: How many different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas?

Question: What do many indigenous cultures still practice to different extends to this day?

Question: What have some indigenous peoples managed to remain in relative isolation from?
Passage: The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, provide the subject of ongoing research and discussion. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the land bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to north west North America (Alaska). Alaska was a glacial refugia because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist. The Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska (East Beringia) for thousands of years.

Question: How Paleo-Indians migrated to the Americas is still a matter for what type of research?

Question: When did humans inhabit North and South America's continents?

Question: What allowed people to move across Beringia to North America?

Question: A small population could exist in Alaska because of it's lack of any significant what?

Question: What confined the nomadic inhabitants to East Beringia for thousands of years?
Passage: Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single ancestral population, one that developed in isolation, conjectured to be Beringia. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years. Around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets.

Question: What do studies on the genetics of the first American inhabitants conclude about their ancestral population?

Question: Where did the single ancestral population of all the indigenous peoples of the Americas likely develop?

Question: How many years may the isolation of the peoples in Beringia lasted?

Question: When did the glaciers begin to melt?

Question: What did the people follow in the corridors between the ice sheets?
Passage: The data indicate that the individual was from a population directly ancestral to present South American and Central American Native American populations, and closely related to present North American Native American populations. The implication is that there was an early divergence between North American and Central American plus South American populations. Hypotheses which posit that invasions subsequent to the Clovis culture overwhelmed or assimilated previous migrants into the Americas were ruled out.

Question: What does the data indicate about the population the individual was from?

Question: What populations is the individual closely related to?

Question: What type of divergence is implicated to have occurred between North American and South American populations?

Question: Theories that there were invasions which overwhelmed or assimilated previous migrants into the Americas have been what?
Passage: While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until Europeans either conquered or significantly influenced them, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus' initial landing. "Pre-Columbian" is used especially often in the context of discussing the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and the Maya civilizations) and those of the Andes (Inca Empire, Moche culture, Muisca Confederation, Cañaris).

Question: The term Pre-Columbian technically refers to which era?

Question: When was Columbus' first voyage?

Question: In practice, Pre-Columbian refers to the history of the indigenous cultures of America prior to Europeans doing what to them?

Question: What term is used most often when discussing the great civilizations of the Americas?

Question: What area of the Americas did the Inca Empire, Moche culture and Muisca confederation hail from?
Passage: Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first significant European and African arrivals (ca. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through oral history and through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Mayan, Olmec, Mixtec, and Nahua peoples, had their own written records. However, the European colonists of the time worked to eliminate non-Christian beliefs, and Christian pyres destroyed many pre-Columbian written records. Only a few documents remained hidden and survived, leaving contemporary historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.

Question: Urban settlements and complex societal hierarchies are just some of the hallmarks established by which civilizations?

Question: What had long faded prior to the first European and African arrivals?

Question: How do we know about some of the civilizations that were gone by the time of European arrival?

Question: What did European colonists destroy on their pyres?

Question: What gave today's historians a glimpse of the culture and knowledge of the indigenous civilizations?
Passage: According to both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter had achieved many accomplishments. For instance, the Aztecs built one of the largest cities in the world, Tenochtitlan, the ancient site of Mexico City, with an estimated population of 200,000. American civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics. The domestication of maize or corn required thousands of years of selective breeding.

Question: What had the civilizations in the Americas achieved by the time the Europeans encountered them?

Question: What had the Aztec civilization constructed?

Question: How big was the population of the Aztec cit of Tenochtitlan?

Question: Astronomy and mathematics were also accomplishments of which civilizations?

Question: How many years of selective breeding did it take to domesticate maize?
Passage: The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the peoples of the continents. Although the exact pre-contact population of the Americas is unknown, scholars estimate that Native American populations diminished by between 80 and 90% within the first centuries of contact with Europeans. The leading cause was disease. The continent was ravaged by epidemics of diseases such as smallpox, measles, and cholera, which were brought from Europe by the early explorers and spread quickly into new areas even before later explorers and colonists reached them. Native Americans suffered high mortality rates due to their lack of prior exposure to these diseases. The loss of lives was exacerbated by conflict between colonists and indigenous people. Colonists also frequently perpetrated massacres on the indigenous groups and enslaved them. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), the North American Indian Wars of the 19th century cost the lives of about 19,000 whites and 30,000 Native Americans.

Question: What did the European colonization forever change?

Question: How much did the population of the Americas decrease after first contact with the Europeans?

Question: What was the leading cause of death for the native population after European contact?

Question: What triad of disease epidemics ravaged the American continent?

Question: Why did Native Americans suffer such high mortality rates to the diseases?
Passage: The first indigenous group encountered by Columbus were the 250,000 Taínos of Hispaniola who represented the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. Within thirty years about 70% of the Taínos had died. They had no immunity to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population. Increasing punishment of the Taínos for revolting against forced labour, despite measures put in place by the encomienda, which included religious education and protection from warring tribes, eventually led to the last great Taíno rebellion.

Question: Who was the first group of indigenous people Columbus encountered?

Question: What did the Taínos represent in the Greater Antilles and Bahamas?

Question: What percentage of the Taínos were dead thirty years after contact with Columbus?

Question: Why were outbreaks of measles and smallpox able to so easily decimate the Taínos' population?

Question: What led to the last great Taínos rebellion?
Passage: Following years of mistreatment, the Taínos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their infants and men jumping from the cliffs or ingesting untreated cassava, a violent poison. Eventually, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo managed to hold out in the Baoruco Mountain Range for thirteen years, causing serious damage to the Spanish, Carib-held plantations and their Indian auxiliaries. Hearing of the seriousness of the revolt, Emperor Charles V (also King of Spain) sent captain Francisco Barrionuevo to negotiate a peace treaty with the ever-increasing number of rebels. Two months later, after consultation with the Audencia of Santo Domingo, Enriquillo was offered any part of the island to live in peace.

Question: What behaviors did the Taínos begin to adopt after years of mistreatment?

Question: What did Taínos women start doing to their infants?

Question: Why would ingesting untreated cassava be a bad idea?

Question: Who was sent to negotiate a peace treaty with the rebels?

Question: How many years was a Taínos Cacique able to hold ou in the Baoruco Mountain Range?
Passage: Various theories for the decline of the Native American populations emphasize epidemic diseases, conflicts with Europeans, and conflicts among warring tribes. Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives. Some believe that after first contacts with Europeans and Africans, Old World diseases caused the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World in the following 150 years. Smallpox killed up to one third of the native population of Hispaniola in 1518. By killing the Incan ruler Huayna Capac, smallpox caused the Inca Civil War. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture.

Question: What was the overwhelming reason for the decline of Native American populations?

Question: Old World diseases accounted for up to what percentage of deaths among the native New World population?

Question: How long did it take for the Old World diseases to decimate the native population to the extent it did?

Question: What disease killed almost a third of the population of Hispaniola in 1518?

Question: How did smallpox cause the Inca Civil War?
Passage: Contact with European diseases such as smallpox and measles killed between 50 and 67 per cent of the Aboriginal population of North America in the first hundred years after the arrival of Europeans. Some 90 per cent of the native population near Massachusetts Bay Colony died of smallpox in an epidemic in 1617–1619. In 1633, in Plymouth, the Native Americans there were exposed to smallpox because of contact with Europeans. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans. It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679. During the 1770s, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans. The 1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic and 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plains Indians. In 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).

Question: What percent of the Aboriginal population of North America was killed in the first hundred years after first contact by smallpox and measles?

Question: How much of the native population near Massachusetts was killed by smallpox in the epidemic between 1617 and 1619?

Question: Who were the Native Americans exposed to smallpox because of?

Question: When did smallpox read the lands of the Iroquois?

Question: What did the Indian Vaccination Act of 1832 establish?
Passage: The Spanish Empire and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. The re-introduction of the horse, extinct in the Americas for over 7500 years, had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America and of Patagonia in South America. By domesticating horses, some tribes had great success: horses enabled them to expand their territories, exchange more goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game, especially bison.

Question: What Empire brought horses to the Americas?

Question: What kind of impact did the re-emergence of horses have on some Native American cultures?

Question: How long had horses been extinct in the Americas prior to their re-introduction?

Question: What did some tribes achieve by domesticating horses?

Question: What enabled some tribes to expand territory, increase trade and capture more game?
Passage: Over the course of thousands of years, American indigenous peoples domesticated, bred and cultivated a large array of plant species. These species now constitute 50–60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide. In certain cases, the indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as was the case in the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. Numerous such agricultural products retain their native names in the English and Spanish lexicons.

Question: What did the indigenous peoples of America cultivate over the course of thousands of years?

Question: What percent of worldwide crops in cultivation derive from the efforts of the America's indigenous people?

Question: How were new species and strains of crops developed?

Question: What was the origin of maize?

Question: What products sometimes retain their native names in both English and Spanish?
Passage: The South American highlands were a center of early agriculture. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggests that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Over 99% of all modern cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile, Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago. According to George Raudzens, "It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines, while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet." The persistent drought around 850 AD coincided with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization, and the famine of One Rabbit (AD 1454) was a major catastrophe in Mexico.

Question: Where was a center of early agriculture?

Question: Based on genetic testing, what has been suggested about the origin of the potato?

Question: Where did the potato originate?

Question: How long ago was the decedent of 99% of all modern potatoes cultivated as long ago as?

Question: What event in 850 AD coincided with the collapse of Mayan civilization?
Passage: Natives of North America began practicing farming approximately 4,000 years ago, late in the Archaic period of North American cultures. Technology had advanced to the point that pottery was becoming common and the small-scale felling of trees had become feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indians began using fire in a controlled manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was used to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories. It made travel easier and facilitated the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants, which were important for both food and medicines.

Question: When did the North American natives begin farming?

Question: What had pottery become 4,000 years ago in the Americas?

Question: What did technology make feasible when it came to trees?

Question: How did Archaic Indians use fire?

Question: What was the intentional burning of vegetation intended to mimic?
Passage: Many crops first domesticated by indigenous Americans are now produced and used globally. Chief among these is maize or "corn", arguably the most important crop in the world. Other significant crops include cassava, chia, squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash), the pinto bean, Phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans and lima beans, tomatoes, potatoes, avocados, peanuts, cocoa beans (used to make chocolate), vanilla, strawberries, pineapples, Peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum, including bell peppers, jalapeños, paprika and chili peppers) sunflower seeds, rubber, brazilwood, chicle, tobacco, coca, manioc and some species of cotton.

Question: What global industry owes its existence to having been domesticated by indigenous Americans?

Question: What is arguably the most important crop in the world?

Question: Squash, beans, and peppers are all examples of what type of crop?

Question: What type of bean is used to make chocolate?

Question: Who do we owe gratitude for even some species of cotton to?
Passage: Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been shared mostly within geographical zones where unrelated peoples adopted similar technologies and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area is Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development among the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example is the North American plains where until the 19th century several peoples shared the traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers based primarily on buffalo hunting.

Question: What did geographical zones encourage the sharing of?

Question: What did people in the same reason adopt?

Question: Where did millennia of coexistence produce a culture with advanced agricultural and social patterns?

Question: How long was there a homogeneous culture on the North American plains?

Question: What creature did the nomadic hunter-gatherers of the plains hunt?
Passage: The development of writing is counted among the many achievements and innovations of pre-Columbian American cultures. Independent from the development of writing in other areas of the world, the Mesoamerican region produced several indigenous writing systems beginning in the 1st millennium BCE. What may be the earliest-known example in the Americas of an extensive text thought to be writing is by the Cascajal Block. The Olmec hieroglyphs tablet has been indirectly dated from ceramic shards found in the same context to approximately 900 BCE, around the time that Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán began to wane.

Question: What was one of the many achievements of the American cultures?

Question: What region produced several writing systems independent of other areas of the world?

Question: What is presumed to be written upon the Cascajal Block?

Question: When were writing systems being created in the Americas?

Question: When has the Olmec tablet been dated to?