Timeline of North American prehistory

2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium

The 1st millennium BC in North American history provides a timeline of events occurring within the North American continent from 1000 BC through 1 BC in the Gregorian calendar. This time period (from 1000 BC–1 BC) is known as the Post-archaic period (Post-archaic stage) and specifically the Early Woodland Period in the Eastern Woodlands. Although this timeline segment may include some European or other world events that profoundly influenced later American life, it focuses on developments within Native American communities. The archaeological records supplements indigenous recorded and oral history.

Because of the inaccuracies inherent in radiocarbon dating and in interpreting other elements of the archaeological record, most dates in this timeline represent approximations that may vary a century or more from source to source. The assumptions implicit in archaeological dating methods also may yield a general bias in the dating in this timeline.

List of events

• 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 western Canada, 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.
• 500–1 BC: Basketmaker phase of early Ancestral Pueblo culture begins in the American Southwest.
• 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 BC: Some central and eastern prairie peoples learned to raise crops and shape pottery from the mound builders to their east.

See also

• Woodland period
• List of archaeological periods (North America)